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| On (10/09/05 08:58), Holger Weiss wrote:
| 
| Date: Sat, 10 Sep 2005 08:58:10 +0200
| From: Holger Weiss <lists@jhweiss.de>
| To: NetBSD Users <netbsd-users@NetBSD.org>
| Subject: Re: seriousness of this Project
| 
| * loxety <loxety@gmail.com> [2005-09-07 22:32]:
| > I think the gentoo project has a good system of documentation. The forums 
| > really help! I wish netbsd had a forum system like the gentoo folks have.
| 
| Many people seem to like the idea of using a browser for more or less
| anything; including, but not limited to, reading and writing their mail
| or news, editing text, chatting, administration, and, if such a plugin
| existed, probably also for brewing coffee.  If people take the time to
| learn how mailers, news-readers, editors, IRC clients and coffee
| machines work, they'll of course realize that these tools do their job a
| lot better than any browser could do, as browsers are made for, well,
| browsing hypertext.  For non-technical people, it might make sense only
| having to learn how to use a single application for all sorts of tasks,
| regardless of how inefficient this might be.  But I'm a bit surprised
| that quite a few people who are interested in technical stuff (such as
| Gentoo) seem to prefer forums over lists or newsgroups ...

It isn't about not knowing how to use other tools, it is a preference.
Everything under one interface is also welcomed, especially when you
are in other environments where ssh is not available or where you are 
just not able to do anything but browse the web. 

Searching for answers via google also returns mostly mailing lists and
forums for answers. I am not certian of anyone else, but I don't keep
archives of this information and people on mailing lists and irc would
definitely like the idea of anyone looking up the information on google
first.

IRC is nice, yet it isn't archived for search. Then again, most people that
need help just need to google, that ask for help on mailing lists and irc
anyways.

usenet just isn't as strong as it used to be, yet still in many areas.

please do not assume because someone prefers to use a web browser, that
they are ignorant of other programs. I use mutt for email, yet prefer to
have forums and mailing list archives to search from in a web browser.

browsers are made to render html, and can be styled with css and whatever,
just like native ui interfaces are made to render a ui. 

after all other resources have been spent looking for answers, irc is 
the last resort, at least in my opinion.

netbsd is nice, yet not sure it is a really a culture that would use forums,
or even have the users that would be interested in it. i think there may be
room for a wiki for multi user site content editing and linking and such.

not that easy to store in cvs though. :)

| 
| Anyways, BSD related forums such as http://www.bsdforums.org/ exist
| already, so I don't see the point in adding another one.
| 
| Holger
| 
| -- 
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