[vlc-devel] RFC: New forums setup

[Derk-Jan Hartman]

The current forums on forum.videolan.org are starting to become a bit 
of a disorganized mess. The forums are very successful, but that is 
starting to become a problem in itself. For one I think we need a bit 
more subdivision in the forums.

We currently have:
General Discussion
- VideoLAN: General discussion about VideoLAN

Technical Discussion
- VLC media player: Technical discussion about VLC media player
- VideoLAN Server: Technical discussion about VideoLAN Server
- Streaming: Technical discussion about streaming features in VideoLAN 
applications
- Requests: Feature requests for all VideoLAN products

Other
- Coffee: Just have a drink and chat
- Private: Private forum
- Deleted: Forum for deleted topics. Move them here

I suggest a new layout along the line of:
VLC media player
- VLC Windows: windows specific usage questions
- VLC Mac OS X: mac specific usage questions
- VLC Linux and friends: *nix specific usage questions
- General VLC discussion: anything not fitting in the above forums can 
go here
- FAQ entries
- Feature Requests
- Bug reports
- Skins (i'm in doubt about this one, but i think it might help spur 
skin development).

Serving streams
- Broadcasting
- Video On Demand
- Encoding/Transcoding
- VLS/miniSAPserver

Other
- Forum/Website discussion
- Coffee Corner
- Private: moderator forum
- Deleted: deleted posts forum

I would also like to create a few more rules.

1: when a bug has been confirmed the topic name needs to get [CONFIRMED 
#] word added to it, where # is the trac ticket number. This should 
also be posted as a link in the forum post.
2: when a usage issue or bug has been solved it needs the [SOLVED] word 
added to the topic name.
3: moderators need to actively move topics if they are in the wrong 
place and inform the users.
4: all rules for a specific forum need to be in one permanent sticky 
and not in multiple

That basically leaves one problem... We need a lot more moderators for 
the forum. FK, zorglub, courmish, dionoea and me are the most regular 
moderators, but it really is not enough. I think we need more 
non-developers to moderate the forum. Moderating != answering all the 
questions. If we can find a few enthusiastic users that would be 
willing to help us regulate the forum, then that would help a lot.

I would like some feedback from the mailinglist, before posting this 
RFC online on the forum. What do the mailinglist subscribers think 
about the setup of the forums and how they should be regulated and 
maintained?

DJH
---
Universiteit Twente
Derk-Jan Hartman (d.hartman at student.utwente dot nl)
http://www.sidequest.org

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