[General] User questions

[Philippe Bossut]

Sheila Mooney wrote:
> Who would be responsible for checking this list regularly and replying 
> to users? 
The same than the people who would be responsible if users were to post 
questions to the design or dev lists (in the absence of a user/help 
list)... I mean, having a separate list for users does not make the 
responsibility harder or easier to manage. So the answer can't help us 
know if we should or shouldn't have such a list and the responsibility 
of getting back to users is still there.

I think that *everyone* in the core staff should be registered to such a 
list and feel empowered to interact with users. The point of having a 
user/help list is to provide a clear place for people to post and a 
clear place for us to interact with end users. We should advertise that 
list in the Chandler About Box or, better, have a Help menu item that 
directs to it. If we're skirmish about putting the design or dev list 
email address there, then that's a clear sign we need a separate list 
right now.

One thing I'd recommend is to have one single list for the whole 
ecosystem (Cosmo/Scooby/Chandler): it will alleviate the list 
proliferation concern and reinforce the "brand" and the concept of an 
ecosystem for users. That was the idea at the beginning of this thread 
(a help at osafoundation.org) but then we started to talk about "-user" 
lists so it looks like we went toward multiple lists unconsciously.

With time, some group of users will emerge and carry the load of 
questions without much prompting from the core team. This is what I've 
observed in commercial products forum BTW. Very often, the core team is 
only lurking and gets engaged in discussion at the beginning of a new 
release (since most of the questions are new). Also often, the most 
active users get recruited in design lists so that their input is taken 
into account.

+1 for having such a list as soon as alpha 4 and have it advertise in 
the product.

Cheers,
- Philippe