It is no secret to anyone that social networks kill entire communities, come on, I have seen blog and forum projects fall for the simple fact that it is easier to do things from a social network, to the same extent that I have come to see businesses that prefer to create a simple Facebook page or a Tumblr blog rather than create a true professional website, simply because it is simpler to handle, cheaper (much cheaper) and with the possibility of reaching millions of people with an investment equivalent to: 0$
Correct, it is a point in favor of social networks but what happens when this starts to look threatening for a community like DesdeLinux? Well, that makes admins like me stop worrying about being simple bastards operators from hell and question the future of the community with which they have worked.
Anyway, what I mean is that lately I have seen the almost overwhelming growth of the community DesdeLinux in G +, and I say overflowing by community standards, taking into account that in the community forum we have barely 624 members registered and the forum is almost a year old, while in the G + community we have 852 members in a matter of… two weeks? And that makes me think many things.
Clearly the forum, the community has already eaten it in all aspects, and it pains me to say it but it is obvious that the community is much more dynamic and easy to take everywhere (Android app, for example) and allows many more features such as the HangOuts or the events, comments, +1's, and a lot of integration in general. Of course it has disadvantages and one of them is clear, it sucks a lot to follow a thread of conversation, and don't tell me otherwise, because it bothers me to have to scrolling conversations a lot or search for them well down in the categories without having filters and stuff. It also lacks tools like BB code, which is incredibly beautiful when we want to structure a post with anything from lists to code.
But social networks are always going to have a greater impact, it cannot be denied, and I see it not only with the numbers but with the active users in the forum and how diminished the publications are in it, which were already low Now they are minors ... it is something complicated and sometimes it makes me think; What if it affects the blog? It is something that many have told me and the truth is that I cannot guarantee that it affects the blog directly, although I cannot be arrogant and allow the team to rest on its laurels, but I can say that they are two very different layers, the blog and the community / forum have little to do at the structural level and are all independent of each other, the thing is that within the community you can make really long and very good posts, but I doubt that to take away the role of the blog, simply There is not point of comparation… Aun.
Regarding the forum, I can only think of three possibilities:
- Close the forum and leave all the leading role to the community.
- Close the community and leave the leading role to the forum.
- Restructure and redesign the entire forum to make it really attractive to users.
And this is where I wanted to get with all this, for me it is not a bad thing to have these tools on social networks, they seem like a double-edged sword that you have to know how to use since the pressure of one motivates us to improve the other. The forum needs many things; a redesign to have true personality, a responsive and lightweight design that allows users to really take the forum anywhere, improve the editing tools so that they can be used comfortably from any device (touch or desktop / laptop), a single account integration (OpenID / Mozilla Persona) and improvements in the usability of the interface ... that would make the forum a more attractive tool to use but Is it worth improving one of our services to compete with, ironically, another of our services? That must also be questioned and see what really matters in the community; If the comfort and integration that G + offers (at the expense of having to be glued to Google) or the way of do it yourself but more complicated and with less acceptance of the forum (and that allows us to maintain control over our actions and data).
The truth is that all we have to do is not at all little, it really is not silly and we have to sit down and argue with force. Everything should be done via comments, I don't want to fragment the discussions between forum, blog and community, I want to have everything on neutral ground and be able to really debate, be able to get a better overview and perhaps create an action plan. It should be noted that any action that could be taken regarding this issue will not be immediate or simply nothing is done, this is purely my initiative and I lack the time and knowledge to do everything quickly, as well as the resources and time. involves the entire decision-making process, blah blah blah ...
From now on it is up to you to debate the issue.
This very long I did not read it, then I read it more calmly ... I just wanted to enter and show my User Agent xD ejejeje
xDDD
I believe that if the community is more active, it will be necessary to focus on it. Of course it weighs to be glued to Google when it is not the most suitable medium for this, but the joke is to attract the community to share knowledge and that.
It hurts, but you have to wait for someone else to come and take down these very limited networks of now.
The networks are not limited, the users are limited and they are only interested in the users and that they click on the ads hehe.
But your opinion is valid.
I think that both tools (the blog and the G + community) should complement each other. The blog for long posts, opinion articles, How-To's, and that kind of thing, and the community for consultations, off-topic talks and other more informal things, so as not to distort.
G + has the benefit of being more dynamic, and that seems to be what makes it more attractive, although it remains to be seen if it is not simply a fad, something temporary. Time will tell (unless the world ends today, haha).
Hahaha I don't think this will break down, after all, admins and editors won't write a whole post about an Archlinux or Slackware installation in a G + space, I'm staying here. The forum I see as functional, since one can state in more detail their opinion about a certain topic, or for a pre-post, and G + is only for informal interaction. Personally I think it would be a shame (and a mistake) to delete the close the forum. I already had a post like this planned, it was only a matter of time. In short: improve the forum a little bit, even though I'm a mere mortal XD.
Correction: close the forum.
PS: I think this post should be shared on G +, so that everyone can come and comment.
I honestly see the forum situation as a losing battle, although it hurts G + brings more advantages than disadvantages, whether we like it or not.
At present the «adapt or die» is very marked, and being frank the community <° is not going to disappear, it will only evolve, so I do not see the case of rowing against the current, I think it is better to let yourself be carried away wisely 😉
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I do not share your opinion. Why? Well, for a simple reason. The forum has a better organization in terms of information, and if you want to search for something, we have the topics / categories and others well organized. When someone publishes in G + everything is very nice because all the members see the question and respond, but after a few days or months Where was that post? What if I want to consult it again? I don't know, I see it as more cumbersome and slow than the forum.
Bro, our opinion in practical terms, will have the significance of a cumin, in the end practicality will win.
Come on old, it's hard to adapt to changes, but it must be done and the faster you do it, the better.
The bald man is right in what he says, it is not so much to adapt but to see the possibilities of each service, it is not easy but there it is.
Well, you are absolutely right, the forum is more organized, more for new users, I have several entries marked as favorites in the browser and that have helped me to learn, as my grandfather used to say, why invent the round wheel?
This space is fabulous to learn and I know that there are people like me who are not much to be posting BUT they are reading the tutorials to solve a problem.
Keep going with the Blog !!
We are comparing things that are not comparable. Google+ is a social network and a forum is something else.
Maybe in the future G + will serve as a community forum, but as mentioned in the article right now looking for something in G + is crazy, apart from the disorganization that there is with everything mixed up.
It would be necessary to maintain the two ecosystems and see which one is better for the function we need.
After reading your post nano I feel guilty for not having registered in the forum, but I have a reason! (We always have a "reason" right?) is that a forum is very addictive to me (sadly I have learned from the past), especially these days that I am on vacation ... ... thinking about that the common of G + appears and boom .... All my effort to stay sober on vacation is lost in G +, so, yes, the G + community is more dynamic, but at the same time the presence of users is more ephemeral, I say: make a call in G + to join the forum (oh oh irony!), I already joined, so tell one more user xDD, also a forum is something more communal and personal, I say ... I don't know, but I hope it doesn't disappear: /
Communal ... by God don't say that, say community xD
Hahahaha ok…. community…. what do you want? the dream was wreaking havoc on me 😛
Nano man say that the G + social network can be threatening for the <° community, I would say that it is extremely fine, the uses and spaces are quite different as this is a blog of news / tutorials, G + is something much more informal .
On the other hand, what if I see part of the reason is that perhaps the forum is a bit doomed, although one would believe that it is more useful to follow up on queries and problems it is less and less active and in the Google community as some things can be solved better, but I still think it is necessary because I share your opinion that it is a real pain to follow the threads for topics like these.
I believe that the page in G + could be more convenient to resolve doubts than the forum, since at least in my personal experience, they pay attention to the questions for a maximum of one day and then it falls irretrievably into oblivion even if it has not been resolved the doubt (I have 3 questions posted there and only one has been resolved, which I answered myself)
In G + they answer you quickly, but if they don't answer that question in a period of time, it gets lost in the sea of other questions and that is something I don't like.
True. Although it would not hurt to organize the forum a little differently so that this does not happen, after all, it is something that cannot be done in G +.
Same thing happened to me. I had some problems and I decided to consult them in the forum (I think I made 3 inquiries / requests for help) and in the end I ended up answering myself and publishing the solution, in case someone needed it at some point.
Now, speaking of G +, for my part I think I once entered the <° community. There is something I don't like about that, but not how to describe it. I feel more comfortable in the forum for important things, and G + to talk and things like that ...
I got used to using forums, like it was before, but the one from <° is practically dead 🙁
creating a community in G + is like building on rented land, nothing like the security of having the information on your server
I read the posts, but I haven't even entered the forum, sincerely when I have a problem with something I search directly in Google and I stick to where solutions come from.
The good thing about them being in the forum is that it appears in the search engines, I don't know how it is with what is published in G +.
Additionally, with the departure of Communities in G + I don't see the point of having a Page and a community at the same time in G +. I would leave the Blog and the Community in G + (so you can also lower bandwidth to the page).
I am subscribed to the Blog, the Forum, G+ and Twitter. I love DesdeLinux, for being an integrative community, (it is not just a blog or a forum, it is all in one). I really ask you not to remove the information from the forum, because the reality is that G+ is more like a chat. It is not practical for G+ to provide complex solutions to problems if those solutions are not going to be available in the future for the rest of the world.
In conclusion, that is my opinion, the forum is a place for questions and answers that will be available to everyone in the future, while G + are personal answers, which will not be available in the future. So although they doubt it, they fulfill different functions.
What are the statistics for?
IRC
The FB group
The G + group
Openarena players
The paste
The forums
We should take that into account. +1 Cristopher Castro.
In my opinion, the uses and the possibilities are not the same, the G + is more immediate for the exchange but it lacks the depth of the blog solutions, indeed, although a part of the users participate in both, I think that in G + There will be a majority who are habitual to this type of space, more due to the fact of constituting a "tribe" than because they belong to a community of open source users, share its principles and actively participate in the promotion and "evangelization" that it usually gathers. to blog members. In any case, I think that both projects should be carried out, without abandoning either one and using G + to achieve greater visibility among those not initiated in GNU / Linux.
Woooww !! What news !!
Well, the information you give Nano is important, but for me I think it would be a mistake to remove the forum, which the truth is I have never looked into. I am a user of DesdeLinux, I read it 1 or 2 times a day, as the publications that arrive in my email come out and following the comments of the ports that interest me the most. I joined the G+ community, more than anything to participate in DesdeLinux, but after 2 days of G+ Spam I disabled notifications and look at me, I'm still here. Nothing against G+ because I would really like it to become consolidated like… like… mmm…. "like whatever has to be consolidated"
For "me" (I clarify how you do it), entrusting G + with the handling of the information in the forum is like asking an archiect to bring you your accounting, and see that I like what G + does, but G + has been mutating as it goes needing to find your site in the market. Google says that it is not a social network, recently they took the issue of the communities, but if you ask me, not even those in Mountain View know where the path that G + is going to move. What happens if after a while it doesn't work and they disappear as with so many services they invested in and that they will never be what they wanted? Maybe and then hangouts and other services will be separated, but are we going to have to recover all the G + information "running" and set up a new forum? and surely in that course valuable information and participation will be lost. I believe that G + is still in its infancy and that we must wait for it to mature, find its place in the market, stabilize and then see the alternatives it offers
Long ago, in a post that had DesdeLinux about how to improve the blog (and I owe them to find a way to organize and manage the use of the content, more from a user's point of view), and I think something like that happens in the forum, sometimes the order and the catalog The content is a bit uncertain, and the information is lost in seas of threads on the forum (well, now just imagine what would happen with G+). For me, the forums have to seek an evolution or disappear (namely, Darwin, evolution, extension), because no matter how much they have been improved, they are so similar to the first forums... well, out with the improvements, how have they changed? And here perhaps (and excuse the audacity) we should look at what made the Richmond popular –> ease, intuitive handling, beauty (which it seems that they themselves are forgetting). And improve them with the ideas and proposals of the people who participate here.
I had a while that I did not enter my G + and now I recently passed by with the communities, the change that took place I did not like, what's more, I did not even know where my options were, I lost myself in everything that I they presented when they entered ... and I had better return to play GWO and leave for another day to dedicate myself to exploring what it now offers us ... or better yet, not learning anything about what it has right now, because surely there will be another change and I better deepen when this I arrived.
Well, I already went on too long. This thread is super interesting, because we are talking about the path we follow as users and the problems of administrators. I will continue reading them and I will be attentive and supportive of the decisions that are made. Thanks for DesdeLinux.
(Sorry to use Windows, but I'm playing GodsWar, and I haven't managed to play it in Wine and I don't have disk space to virtualize iExplorer)
I will add that I think you can use a Google account to DesdeLinux, to upload the tutorials and HowTO in PDF, be able to view them online, download them and build a library, as well as store files that you want to share (Conky configurations, OpenBOX, among others), Picasa to host the community wallpapers and The Hangouts for people who like video conferences. All in one account. But well here yes, whatever the administrators say.
About deleting the forum is just a crazy consideration, I never said that it was something that was intended to be done, that it is just something mine.
Regarding the integration of DesdeLinux with other services such as Picasa, Drive, Google accounts... these are things that must be listed, discussed one by one, see how feasible their integration is and, above all, know if it attacks the principles of our community or if it is in favor of they.
Well, I proposed the services that I know, maybe and it would be a matter of using another ... Flirk (or whatever it is called), or some free option ... I don't know, that's why I said that here if "what the administrators say", to My truth is that I did not think of the principles of the community, but you are attentive to that, thanks for your observation ...
And of the for, well how good that it is just your crazy idea, Hahaha! And it's too bad that we were all already putting together the Flame War for the "inevitable closure" Hahaha! XD
Sorry for not reading well 😛
The truth is that I see communities as if they were forums, but the best thing is that you can manage 20 of those forums from a single site, have it centralized without having to go to X or Y web just to see the news.
It cannot be denied that social networks have replaced what used to be those great internet forums and that they have undoubtedly come to stay
I have joined G + and honestly I can't find a way for it, a million times better the blog and the forum.
I don't think the blog will go down FOR ANYTHING. The same thing happened to me with my blog, although it is nothing to do with technology, it is more personal and my followers are about 160 maximum. However, the account I created on Facebook has more followers. The reason is obvious: there are users with more Facebook accounts than Blogger who follow my blog. If you look at the visits they must have on this blog, they must be much higher than the followers they have because people will continue to visit the blog no matter what happens. The blog is your main page, the rest are extensions where users interact and, therefore, they will have more followers in those other places like G +.
As for the forums ... the main problem that the forums have always had is that you have to create an account (in many forums it is like that) to be able to enter and participate and they do not give you the option to enter with a google account or something like that. The common user seeks comfort and does not want to be creating 20 accounts of 20 different forums to participate in each of them; they want to simplify their existence and, therefore, they choose to search for pages on Facebook that relate to the topic or on a social network. Also, to enter a forum it is almost mandatory that you have to do it from a PC and there is not much time for that either. Your community on G + has grown and I bet you anything that it is because of the users who keep in touch via mobile, more than anything. It's HORRIBLE to have to look at each notification and you say: "I'm not going to go in to read anything," but you end up going in… at the same time, that's the beauty of the G + community.
Anyway, I am not an expert in anything but it is what I can think of all this.
[Like] & [+1]
I have been registered in G + and I left it because I was hoping to replace Facebook, but you know that it does not depend only on us but also on our contacts, so I know it but I do not use it.
On the other hand, I am registered in the forum, I follow the news from twitter and this is my first participation in the blog, although I met you thanks to him.
From my non-participatory position (I hope to change this) I think it would be a mistake to dispense with the forum, since its larger organization is ideal for a community of a technical nature. The only thing that could be better organized is a Wiki, but it would lose the social aspect and the possibility of debate.
Regarding whether or not to continue in G + I no longer enter, because I have not been able to see how you take it there, but Twitter is a convenient substitute for the classic RSS.
: - /
Welcoming compasses!
According to what I think and use, I believe that the blog is the center of this great community in terms of news, there is not a day that I do not read their posts .. ..on the other hand I am not a user of social networks (see G + , book, bird, etc) .. and despite being registered in the forum, my readings for it are every once a week in contrast to the many that I review the blog, both for new and old articles ..
My only proposal is the following, I think a division is necessary in terms of the answers in the articles within the blog, the same divided in terms of what are answers, let's call them 'simple' (as they can be congratulations, support, review, etc) and the 'complex' (as they can be critical that give rise to several answers, request for help when not being able to make something work on the same post, and the like).
Sorry for the length ... and as always thank you very much for being here for all of us, and us for you in this great space that you offer us ... and the continuous improvement and desire that you put ...
From already thank you very much..
Scalibur ..
Well, I knew you had a Forum, but the truth is, I don't think I've ever seen it.
Thanks to this post, you have put it on my plate.
Replace G + by the Forum…? It is normal to think about it and shuffle it, but the organization that can give you a forum does not give it to you G +.
And for the record, I am not an active user of any Forum, maybe I will be encouraged by yours 😉