I’ve been seeing end-user questions popping up here. While that is OK, of course, my primary worry has always been that if discussion.fp.o starts receiving lots of end-user queries, it’ll hamper the development discussions that various teams want to use it for.
So, should we redirect users to Ask Fedora for such queries. It is currenlty an Askbot instance, but will very soon become a Discourse instance (currently at askbeta.fedoraproject.org)?
I understand the sentiment. As an end user though this is as close to a project I’ve ever been and it is quite refreshing . I’ve had the opertunity to help other users, provide direct feedback, and weigh in on topics that will be instrumental in forging the future of silver blue. Could tags help project members stay focused without sacrificing that warm and welcoming atmosphere that has made this place so awesome?
Yes, it’s possible in the Discourse architecture, but the powers that be decided to make two separate instances (presumptively at twice the cost or more).
In other words, as far as what’s technically possible:
A seaparate top-level category can exist for Ask/Support and a URL can redirect people directly into that category to look at various sub-categories of support questions (and answer).
The support categories (and subcategories) can have their own CSS for a unique coloring and look/feel, if desired. It can also have its own “banner” content at the top introducing people to how the support system works.
Plugins for accepted answer and topic voting can be enabled category-by-category, if desired.
The support content can be hidden from the main top-level listings of new content etc., to keep it separated and only viewable when someone lands on the support category page.
But anyway, all of the above is purely hypothetical on what’s possible with Discourse, and not what’s actually going to ever happen.
For what it’s worth, I have changed the Desktop and Server category descriptions to point more towards Ask Fedora, but I like what @hreidmar says about bringing users and project members closer together — that’s a good thing. I think the main distinction is whether it’s a help request kind of thing, rather than who you are.
And @downey — we are paying for two instances, but it’s actually the case that the combined traffic on both would push us into “Call for Pricing” enterprise plans. Also having the number of stie “staff” members we need for both. So we’re really using what we’re paying for. I do hope to see Discourse grow some federation features in the future.