On Mar 11, 2011, at 1:10 PM, Chris Morgan wrote:

Jasper,

> In regards to the FAQ. We're also looking to launch this on the new site in
> regards to support... http://www.osqa.net/ and Questions and answers.

Any reason to prefer this over the system we already have in Launchpad (which seems to be operational)?
I presume you are referring to https://answers.launchpad.net/inkscape; looking at that now it is more active than I had realised (I only knew vaguely about it, it's never been advertised as a method to get help), but I don't feel that it can be as useful as OSQA on our own site. What we're looking at doing is covering both that and inkscapeforum.com (with the intent being of eclipsing it), but will be more useful, official, visible, promote more of a central community... and be more fun.

I just found out about it too, and I think it's great - it's active, lots of people asking and responding to questions, in multiple languages. It uses OpenID so it ties in nicely with the planned login for the main site.

I think it's worth considering keeping it, and promoting it more - we could have a landing page on the main site that explains it to people before sending them off on their way. I don't think it's necessarily a good idea to try replacing support systems that are already in place and active - that risks confusing (and pissing off) lots of people, the questions history is very useful, and there are language localizations to consider too (transfering over the entire history of questions in all languages, would be an absolute nightmare!). It could be better just to link everything up via the main site, i.e. promote them as the "official" support channels. This could also help people get used to the Launchpad system in order to participate in bug reporting and whatnot...

I'm sure it's ten times better, but it seems like a shame to spend time on launching something we already have.

I think we only partially have Launchpad Answers; how many use it or really know about it? It's quite obscure. And, while powerful, Launchpad is not the most friendly system to work with. If we have it integrated on our own "normal"-type site, I think we'll get more people using it and finding Inkscape support helpful than we would with the Launchpad Answers system, however we promoted it. Having everything in one place is a Very Good Thing.

We can't keep everything in one place - that would require a lot of destruction IMO. What we can do is make everything easier to find and understand, and promote the various channels of the Inkscape community. By the nature of the internet everything is fractured and spread out over the place - there are forums, blogs, photo galleries, art communities, etc, all contributing to the "community". I really think hooking up the best of these via the main website will help much more than unnecessary rebuilding. Focus should be put on tidying and refining, making information easily available, easy to digest and easy to use.