Hey folks,
being users of WinDirStat and perhaps having contacted me through the contact form or other means, would you like to see a Wiki and or forum for WinDirStat instead of merely the trackers and the mailing list (which is virtually dead, except for the very frequent spammers, which you wouldn’t get to see because the whole list is moderated).
A forum may offer a more lively discussion among users and may be a little more exposed than the mailing list is. This way I’d also spend less time supporting users because you folks could – by merit – become “community” moderators and help newbies or in general help other users. Last but not least this might be one way to share cleanup (and soon other scripted) actions. For the latter a Wiki may be more suitable or even just in addition. The forum AFAIK isn’t tied to the SF.net accounts if we run it on SF.net, but the Wiki would, I think. I only remember faintly from Enchanted Keyfinder.
Whatcha think? Let me know in the comments. Thanks and get well into the year 2013.
// Oliver
I think getting a reddit would be best. It’d be more active, allow new people to find windirstat easy and you wouldn’t have to waste the bandwidth, space, or time for it.
Not a bad idea. Still, keeping the resources central and available in version control seems more important to me (the Wiki aspect) – for the Wiki I would use DokuWiki, which is file-based and thus can be kept under version control. But for the forum aspect I think this is exactly the thing to do.
Any idea how to do that? I have no experience with reddit. I know one person who does know a lot, but perhaps you can lend me a hand, too?
If you want to keep everything centralized, maybe switch over to github? They have a built in wiki and just about everything else you need. Combine that with your own subreddit and you’ll be following in the footsteps of a lot of other open source projects.
Honestly, I don’t like having a hundred different forum accounts – and being able to just load up the reddit homepage and seeing the latest posts from all the subreddits I’m subscribed to is a lot easier than going to a bunch of different forums. I’m sure others feel the same way, so maybe it’s okay to sacrifice some centralization for that.
Anyways send me an email (I’m assuming you can see it since you own this blog?) and I’ll help you out.
Hey, thanks. I’ll contact you on the email address then (supposedly some time during the weekend).
Now, as for Github, definitely not. I dislike Git a lot (several reasons and not just prejudice 😉 ). I’ve given Bzr, Git and Hg a try and stuck with Hg. I prefer Bitbucket alone for Hg, but SF.net offers _all_ of these facilities, too. Forum, Wiki …
Although of course none of the offered Wikis has as convenient (and natural) a syntax as DokuWiki, in my opinion.
A forum and/or wiki (and/or subreddit) is always a good thing (in my opinion) 😎
First thank you for all your work on this most useful utility.
I’m glad you have opened this discussion as I can see WinDirStat has a bright future. Consider the complexity of storage management in the cloud being added to your computer. The new Chromebook versions will appear but the motivations for WinDirStat will become CloudDirStat. I use multiple Cloud storage sites for different but with a clear idea of what is using how much. There are developing a whole list of questions I have as to what is going on on which service.
Second I don’t know if you can change the blog’s title but I would suggest removing the word “propaganda”. It implies a negative meaning just the opposite of WinDirStat’s reputation.
Cheers,
John S Wolter
Thank you for this useful app.
IMHO the main problem of recent times is DIGITAL (medias, channels, etc.) DISTRACTION. Lot of distractions dissipates attention.
As any product WinDirStat needs solid communication strategy & tactics. Strategy means Purpose of Communication. Tactics – used means / communication channels.
I see 3 types of audience: beginners; users; developers=contributors, and all they need easy (not more than “3 clicks to target”) way of interaction (IMHO this MUST BE implemented in GUI i.e. Menu, under Help (or Report)):
Beginner needs:
1) a fast track to start (Start wizard; FAQ & Help/Wiki on blog /or/ https://bitbucket.org/windirstat/windirstat/wiki/Home / ;
2) easy involvement to community & contribution (probably disqus.com connected with blog is the fastest way)
User(=contributor):
Both average and advanced users usually have lot of questions or ideas so they are potential contributors as: Issue reporters; new Options/Functions suggesters and voters; Translators
Developer=contributor:
For developers if they want to contribute any channel will fit.
Well who’s going to respond to the inquiries? This is the huge problem already and it’s also a problem with the old “error reporting” mechanism which is waaaaay too easy for people to submit even empty messages (which is the overwhelming majority of “feedback” these days) coming in via the “error reporting” feature.
No, unless there are people who will volunteer to help out with this aspect of the WinDirStat project, which eats up a lot of the allotted time, I’ll not make it “easier” to report an issue than Bitbucket makes it. But yes, there will be a link leading to the issue tracker.
What outsiders often don’t understand is that time is the bottleneck. Not money (I have a day job for that). So even contributing to the documentation, tending to defect reports and verifying the issue exists would help big time. But that’s what people are unwilling to commit: their time.
The Wiki has been there for years now on Bitbucket. You (if I’m not mistaken it was you) are the first other than me to edit anything on it.
But please, contact me either here on the blog or via email with some more details of these ideas.