++
Need to make this a better resource.
Some of the deliverables seem redundant with existing tools, like cpanratings. On the other hand, there are several usability issues with cpanratings, so maybe this is a good step? The trust feature sounds cool, but complicated.
This is my favorite among Gabor's three proposals. It has the most obvious benefit to the community, since cpanforum is already the de-factor bulletin board for CPAN. I do think users get confused whether to post to RT or cpanforum or just email the author (or post to PerlMonks or StackOverflow or ...), though, so I'm interested in future proposals to address that space.
I don't think this is a good use of the Foundation's money. Web forums are a poor replacement for mailing lists, doubly so for the sort of people who use modules from the CPAN, who tend to be already on several mailing lists and like to have discussions delivered to them instead of having to remember to check several online places, and put up with someone elses idea of a good user interface.
Personally I never found online forums a productive tool for discussions. I find an email client with all the offline capabilities it has a much superior tool.
But I know that there are those who prefer online forums.
If the system includes an associated mailing list, I would very much welcome such a system. If not, then I think we have enough online web forum systems we can use.
Best regards,
In an ideal world the users would all subscribe to our project mail lists and do what we want (or, what suits us authors best). But of course that's not going to be the case!
I get a mix of RT, CPAN Forum, and direct Email contact in support of my modules, and the key point is that I am *glad* for this. It means all users can choose the method they are most comfortable with. There are many users who are very familiar with forums (phpbb etc) and naturally gravitate to that. I wouldn't wish to reject those users.
Sometimes I bounce Forum or personal Email into RT, which is fine. But the Forum is important, and desperately needs some work to make it smoother for all to use.
I vote my support for this proposal.
However, it's a lot of money and I hope the web user interface is going to get a lot better, and that features such as being able to reply via Email to my Email CCs of postings becomes possible. There is not much detail of the interface enhancements in the proposal.
Let me address the mailing list issues. CPAN::Forum already provides both an optional e-mail and rss feed of the posts in selected sub-forums.
I've forgotten to add it to the original proposal but I'd also like to add an email2forum gateway so people can answer emails sent by the forum by replying in e-mail.
We can then hook up this into existing mailing lists so project that do already have mailing lists will be able to use that only and let other, who prefer the web forums, use that.
While I do think this is an important feature I also think that many people will prefer to use web forums. See the success of PerlMonks for example.
I strongly agree with Oliver and feel that CPAN would do well to try to overcome its UNIX orientation, this will allow greater interaction from the DARKPAN. I say this being a debian person who prefers mailing lists.
I also think Gabor is the right man for the job since he is very results oriented, a man of his word, and makes good decisions about design and functionality.
This is a very good use of the Foundation's money.
"CPAN::Forum development"
it isn't the good idea to spend the money!