Hi,since we have similar discussions at gnustep every once and then, I'll give my note.
Benny Siegert wrote:
What you write is the positive side of this thinking. Someone may prefer mailing lists, some other google groups. Why not discussing things on facebook pages? Twitter? geeklist? Forums. The abundance o channels is ovewhelming.I would like to give a counterpoint to the Google bashing and general negativity in reply to Tony's post. (Yes, I work at Google, but that is irrelevant.) What you failed to realize is that different people use different channels. Even if you happen to prefer mailing lists or NNTP or Gmane, other people may prefer web forums or social networking sites. I think that it is important to reach out to these users as well. The BSD community is great in this regard. Next time someone complains on a NetBSD list on how we fail at marketing, I will remind her or him of the attitude displayed in this thread, which I frankly find very arrogant. Btw, there is also a separate NetBSD community on Google+, and several developers are members there.
Let me show you the negative side: when you post a question or a problem, you expect an answer (well, you at lest hope in one).
If the "community" of knowledgeable users (real developers, long time users, etc) splits between channels or just has one preferntial channel, a user asking on the "wrong" channel will get no answer or perhaps a bad answer, no discussion thread enrolls.
At the end, the user, who choose a contact medium he preferred, receives a worse experience than using a different way where he could have gotten a better answer.
What's better, be happy first, deluded later or get something that works? Riccardo