fpgroups.com: Revised chat room

[Brian K. White]

----- Original Message ----- 
From: <fp at casabellagallery.com>
To: "Jay R. Ashworth" <jra at baylink.com>
Cc: <filepro-list at lists.celestial.com>
Sent: Monday, September 10, 2007 10:01 PM
Subject: RE: fpgroups.com: Revised chat room


> Jay posted:
>
>> > I respect both Brian's and your observations but I think you both are
>> > missing the point.  This is one of those cases where more is better.
>> > While it is not the case for you or Brian, it just might be for others.
>>
>> From 24 years experience, I can tell you that, unfortunately, no, more
>> is *not* better.  The only valid reason for splitting a communications
>> channel is *load*.  Occasionally, topic.  But "why not?"?  Not so much.
>>
>
> Jay,
>
> I don't get it!  How is fpgroups.com a threat to the list?  How is
> fpgroups.com a threat to TinyRoom or JE's chat room?

A) There are a small number of fp developers.
B) A new site does not magically create new filepro developers unless it is 
advertized on some large and high-visibility venue.

So,

C) If I need help or want opinions, it's bad for me if half of the other 
developers are somewhere I am not.
D) If I want to be available to give help or opinions, it's bad for 
recipients if I am somewhere they are not.
E) It's inconvenient and unreasonable to expect me to start monitoring and 
participating in multiple forums just to continue to be in the same 
community with the same people. More work for the same result? No thanks.

by contrast,

F) More simple content is useful. Several developers have some fp related 
content on their own sites which turns up in google when searching for help 
on a particular topic some times. Hints, gotcha's, code, recipes and 
examples...

But mostly this is not meant as an attack or to say that the new site is a 
bad thing.
It is slightly harmful for the thinning out of resources, but mostly it just 
explains why I don't find it useful enough to want to invest any of my time 
in it.

The wrapper/portal to Johns chat room is the right idea. 25 different shaped 
doors to the same room is a useful thing. 25 different rooms is a bad thing.

The argument about JPR's Unix stuff is completely irrelevent on several 
different levels.
1) It's simple content as in F) above. That content is added to the world of 
stuff google may pull up, and does not require anyones attention to maintain 
it or to derive benefit from it. For simple content, more IS better. (as 
long as your ability to search and filter it is good)
2) Even if it _were_ a community forum requiring attention from the user, 
thus taking that attention away from somewhere else, that would _still_ be 
ok, because Unix, even specifically SCO Unix, is many orders of magnitude 
more populous than filePro. It's OK that there are tons and tons of Linux 
newsgroups, web forums, mail lists, etc... It's _necessary_ in that case 
because if everyone interested in Linux was on one community, of whatever 
form, it would be too large to function.
Unix is not as large a cmmunity as that these days, but still very very 
large.
filePro is not.


> I use the list as my primary link to the community as a whole.  I do not
> sit and way for messages to be posted in fpgroups.com ... Heck, for 
> anything
> I do in fpgroups.com to be known I need to use the list to let others 
> know.

What a succinct explaination of the problem. I'm glad you finally see it.

> It is evident that you guys see fpgroups.com as a threat or something that
> would likely kill whatever it is you are so protective of.

I think you inexcusably overstate the issue. Frankly, I would rather see a 
chat room that is more universally accessible than John's iVocalize. It runs 
on a proprietary server, it requires a proprietary client, requires Windows 
(last I tried), It's really about the _last_ way that I would have 
implimented a chat room and is a bit inconvenient for me since I use a 
non-windows desktop at least 50% of the time. I'm hardly protective of it. 
In fact I haven't even logged in in a couple years. But, it already exists 
and works well enough and the voice part of it is perhaps worth putting up 
with it's limitations. My eyes happen to be ok, but other peoples who's 
aquantance I do value are not, and to my knowledge there is no open source 
system that provides the same functionality.

It's too bad about your personal spat with JE but that is your problem. Why 
should I accept making it my problem by accepting the inconvenience of 
having to deal with a redundant forum just to maintain access to the same 
people I already have access to now? A lot of what you claim to be after 
below is perfectly fine. I have no problem with most of it. The things that 
I say are redundant simply are.

> I, in the other
> hand, am trying to have you see it as an extension to your already 
> available
> resources.
>
> Take for instance the
>
> (1) "Market Place"; a perfect place to let others know of
> all the gadgets you have available for sale, seek for opportunities to do
> business with others and expand your target market.
>
> (2) "Who's Who"; an opportunity to let others associate a real entity 
> behind
> the email messages and further expose yourself and your business.
>
> (3) "Code Snippets"; an excellent repository for source code that will not 
> break
> your bank but sure will help some of your fellow friends (the very friends 
> you
> do not want to split).
>
> (4) "Community Links"; an additional way to let others know of any other 
> area
> which can be of interest.
>
> (5) "Knowledge Base"; a valuable resource where a wealth of knowledge 
> could be kept
> and made readily available for every one to search.
>
> (6) "Articles"; the opportunity to share with others today and the next 
> generation.
>
> (7) "Chat Room"; the cause of all this fuss, but a simple and easy to use 
> medium for
> a quick and relax keyboard based conversation.
>
> Not perfect, not complete, not accepted but still a good site for those 
> that find
> value in it.

The only way this is all a good idea, is if you intend to make it SO good 
that it is so much better than what already exists, which is admittedly a 
bit fractured, spotty, and disorganized, as to overcome and be worth the 
overhead of everyone changing over to using it. Because for the zillionth 
time, the cummunity is SMALL so we WOULD all have to switch over to using 
it, or else suffer a loss of value.

Collecting and organizing the stuff that already exists would be the most 
valuable and would be the only thing that actually does what you claim to be 
after, adding without taking away. If it's actually good, then it will see 
use on it's own naturally. Keep on doing like you are doing basically since 
you seem to be on a path to having it be useful. Keep adding and collecting 
content, keep improving the searchability and organization of that content 
and use it / refer to it when answering questions of your own (as you have 
already started doing), and it will speak for itself once it is useful 
enough.

The web 2.0 suggestion wasn't buzzword-speak. That is what you could do that 
would be an improvement on what already exists. (5)Knowledge Base and 
(6)Articles should both be implimented as wiki's. That's trivial but another 
idea would be to figure out some way to customize a wiki with a plugin or 
something that has special knowledge of filepro. So that you could upload, 
download, view, edit, maybe even test run various filepro components, not 
just prc's but anything, whole files, forms, screens, etc.
Probably an extremely non-trivial project, but that is something we could 
use and something we don't already have, and so, not a waste of anyones time 
or effort, yours or mine or mere lurkers/users.

As for the finer points of the chat thing, I could write several large 
paragraphs about that, about why existing systems all have certain features, 
some overt, many subtle, and why it's a waste of everyones time not starting 
with some existing system instead of writing new from scratch without 
yourself being some kind of chat & IM guru who already knows all the other 
systems inside & out. It's not that I care very much about that personally. 
It just takes long enough to describe even one little issue, if you are as 
completely ignorant on the subject as you apparently are, that it ends up 
looking like it must be a big deal to me personally and really it's not. 
It's just that it just happens that I am a long time chat user and do "get" 
what Mark is talking about and it's frustrating watching the blind lead the 
blind. This stuff is all old hat figured out long ago and should be beneath 
discussion at this point. It's frustrating watching time wasted on it.

For one teeny example, if you don't yet understand the function of /msg 
(private message), then that's basically proof that you don't yet "get" 
chat. The various needs that /msg solves, you have yet to encounter and be 
convinced the problem needs addressing. (call them on the phone and arrange 
a meeting at the park??? ROFL!!!! where do I begin?...) In the meantime the 
system "kinda sucks" for lacking the feature, and then at some point, maybe, 
you get convinced it's needed, then you write it, then you fix it, then you 
fix it, then you fix it, then eventually it's useful... meanwhile 37 irc 
servers and a hundred other IM systems already dealt with that ages ago. 
There is a certain bag of features, some obvious/visible/overt, some 
/non-obvious/invisible/subtle, some seemingly obvious with important not so 
obvious ramifications, that defines a reasonable baseline that any chat-like 
system should have as a starting point. By far the easiest way to attain 
that starting point is to start with one of the _many_ existing systems that 
already has it. Easy isn't always a virtue and may not be your goal, but 
efficiency is always a virtue and a product that is not missing important 
functions is hopefully at least not incompatible with your goal.

Also please stick to arguing with what we actually say and not present your 
inept, unfounded, and ridiculous psychological musings as arguments. As an 
example to go by, witness how I did not respond to the "you are afraid of 
something, you are you protecting something." argument by saying that you 
seem to have a persecution complex or something.

Brian K. White    brian at aljex.com    http://www.myspace.com/KEYofR
+++++[>+++[>+++++>+++++++<<-]<-]>>+.>.+++++.+++++++.-.[>+<---]>++.
filePro  BBx    Linux  SCO  FreeBSD    #callahans  Satriani  Filk!