RE: [TSVN] Hosting

Hi Folks,

> >>> One website on tigris.org, so one set of links pointing to Berlios
> >>> or SourceForge or XXXX.
> >>
> >> Thanks for clarifying. I'm feeling completely misunderstood since
> >> yesterday evening.
> >
> > Something like "we've moved to here"?
> > That wouldn't be fair to tigris.org.
>
> I think you have both misunderstood my clarification. What I mean is
> that the main website stays on tigris.

I think I haven't :-)
I'd like to move it into the CMS over time, but it can stay there. For me it
doesn't make a big difference whether I edit the html locally and hit 'cvs
ci' or whether I log into a cms and edit or paste the html there.

> There are a few parts that we
> need to have hosted elsewhere because we need php/sql support, or
> because uploading language packs is a pain. They get linked
> to from the
> main tigris website, so there is only one set of links to
> maintain. That
> is exactly what we have already with the Berlios pages.

Again, that's all that I want.

> > I think I have to explain why I'm afraid of moving stuff around:
> > - we had a static FAQ page on tigris.org
>
> I think static FAQ is adequate, provided we update it. But I'm so 20th
> century ;-)

Hey, I spent 87.5% of my life in the last century, but I'm a dynamic, not a
static person. That's why I want to generate the FAQ pages dynamically
(read: from a database).

> > - Lübbe installed the FAQ system on berlios.de
> > - It should have been an improvement over the static FAQ (people can
> > search the FAQ, it has counters, RSS, ...)
>
> So far so good ...
>
> > - But: for me, it only made things worse! People now kept asking
> > support questions via the FAQ.

[1] Are you *really* sure it made things worse? Remember that the 1.1.5
Release had around 53.000 downloads? We had 442 Messages which contain
"TortoiseSVN - FAQ" in the subject line since October 2004. 222 of the
messages are replies. That gives us 220 questions in six months. One point
something per day. Not much compared to at least 50.000 users, probably a
lot more.

> Sometimes those questions
> got answered
> > on the mailing list, but nobody but me would go back to the FAQ and
> > delete those non-FAQ's.

I did, but most of the times Steve was quicker...

> That is a problem with the particular FAQ we use. The proposal is to
> stop people asking questions there and point them at the mailing list.
> Then we pick the most frequent/interesting questions and put them back
> into the FAQ in a controlled manner. In many ways it is the same as a
> static FAQ, but if we want better searches, statistics, etc. then we
> need a dynamic one.

Amen. Exactly what I'm preaching.
 
> > - When I told people to not ask questions about personal problems in
> > the FAQ, I was called rude.
>
> Well we always say that to you anyway ;-) If we block
> questions on the
> FAQ, you won't have to say that any more.

One of the advantages is that people now have to ask directly on the list,
so there's no need to erase non-FAQs. And Steve can still be rude if he
feels like it ;-)

> > - The questions on the mailing list weren't less than with the FAQ
> > before, so no gain there.

See [1] above. Don't forget that TortoiseSVN is gaining a lot of popularity.
In May 2004 we had around 20.000 downloads of installers. In December 2004
we had around 40.000. In April 2005 we had >50.000.

You can't really tell how much time the online FAQ is actually saving us,
but I claim it's a lot.

> For me, channelling all questions through one place (the mailing list)
> would be a gain. I am too lazy to look in multiple places.

Agreed, so am I.

> > - Then berlios.de got server problems, and everything went from bad
> > to worse.
>
> None of the previous problems are due to using a different
> host. Moving
> the existing FAQ to SourceForge will not make things better or worse,
> except for improving access.
>
> > Now, again we move stuff around, and instead of having a somewhat
> > simple FAQ system, we increase the complexity again. Don't know how
> > bad it will become this time, but I definitely don't expect it to be
> > better.
>
> Pessimist!

Yep :-)

It's Ok to look for flaws in a suggestion and discuss them, but I don't like
worst case assumptions all over the place.

Cheers
- Lübbe

--
       ___
  oo  // \\      "De Chelonian Mobile"
 (_,\/ \_/ \     TortoiseSVN
   \ \_/_\_/>    The coolest Interface to (Sub)Version Control
   /_/   \_\     http://tortoisesvn.tigris.org
---------------------------------------------------------------------
To unsubscribe, e-mail: dev-unsubscribe@tortoisesvn.tigris.org
For additional commands, e-mail: dev-help@tortoisesvn.tigris.org