doc/todo/provide_a_mailing_list.mdwn



I am aware that you (Joey) [[made_a_choice_against_a_mailing_list|contact]],
but I would like to see you reconsider.
The wiki works well for bugs and
collaborating on the software, but not for simple user support issues. For
instance, I spent the last three days waiting for any form of reply to my
question on IRC (none so far):
09 15:49 < madduck> any ideas how to implement a two-level menu
09 15:40 < madduck> like http://www.abacons.ch/leistungen/treuhand.html ?
09 15:50 < madduck> the top bar are the main sections
09 15:50 < madduck> and then i might need subsections (further down) under each
09 15:50 < madduck> i'd like to do this without hardcoding sections in the template
09 15:50 < madduck> but at least the main sections are to appear on all pages
09 15:50 < madduck> so the template needs a slot, i just wonder how best to fill it
09 15:51 < madduck> i can only ever use one navbar it seems
09 15:51 < madduck> and i already need the sidebar for something else

I would not know where to take this question on the wiki itself.
A mailing list is made for these kind of questions, and as we pick up even
more users, the number of such requests will also increase. --[[madduck]]

I wouldn't mind a mailing list myself. For many people, e-mail is more
efficient to process, particularly offline, than wiki pages. Also,
ikiwiki's discussion pages require a fair amount of discipline from
users to make it easy to follow a long discussion. On the other hand,
it would be interesting to make improvements to ikiwiki
(read: plugins) to to see if it's possible to accomodate both
mail people and online people.
--liw


The Zwiki project has ideas to mine in this area. We explored various permutations of wiki and mail list.
Currently Zwiki's email features are good enough that we use it as the mail list and don't run separate
ml software. This is simple and mostly satisfying. Now and then we miss the familiarity and industrial
strength of a standard mail list and its simple time-based archive. We do gateway with gmane so people
can use that as an alternative. I'm happy to chat about this, ping me..
--sm


[[!tag wishlist]]