Jon A. Cruz wrote:
Although you don't happen to find the interface particularly pretty, it is far more than sufficient and has allowed an artistic community to flourish. The functionality of most forums is there, and people didn't need to make it prettier once they hit the sufficient level where artistic discussion and use hit critical mass.
The POV-Ray community is perhaps not a fair comparison. Yes, it's huge, but I suspect it's been around for over ten years, a time when newsgroups was as popular as websites. Most people who use the internet today would not even know what a newsgroup is. And unless they worked in a large organisation they may never have been exposed to a mailing list. But if they've used the internet then you can be pretty sure they've accessed a webpage and after not to long they will have been exposed to forums.
To suggest Inkscape doesn't need a forum is closing the door in the face of many potential users.
Will it dilute the current Inkscape community and pool of knowledge? Maybe - but that sounds a little doomsday-ish to me. In most situations people are finding Inkscape info via Google, so there is little difference if the info is on wiki.inkscape or forum.inkscape provided it can be found.
And with the amount of rubbish usually posted on a forum, there will always be a place for a Wiki that compiles the useful stuff.
You have to ask the question, does the mailing list ensure Inkscape is capturing the biggest audiance? I would suggest by only using a mailing list it's restricting the audiance.