About messaging on Google Group

[ivanwfr]

Yesterday I've posted a message to Lee in the topic entitled "Layouts +
images + Carl + AutoHotkey" in which I asked him a question about his
layout experiments we can see on his blog page
http://tmblsn.blogspot.com. A little later, Lee posted a message in
another thread and did not answer my question.

This makes me wonder if he has even noticed it...
- As a matter of fact, you can miss a message if you do not care to
make sure you are viewing the updated page.
- If you go to the last page you can miss it as well when it is a reply
to another but the last!
- - - - - - - - - - - - - -
This is why I far prefer posting in a bulletin board where the
presentation is taken care of. This Google seams to swallow these
messages just like a rubbish-can would. You can look in there like you
would in a waste pile.

It is unfortunate that I am not able to do that myself but I would
suggest somebody should do something to get us a real Forum powered by
PhpBB or something like it. Else, all that is shared here about the AG
will be soon lost for everyone but Google.

Mike, I insist on the need for a solution that won't rely on Google
"generosity".
This is what people do nowadays when they care supporting an active
users community, like I know you do. Users helping each other to get
the most they can from their experience with this demanding device is
far better than any aggressive and costly marketing campaign. This
asset must be appropriate though.

- I don't believe that a bunch of scattered messages, some
individual's pages and blogs are not any good in time.
- A Wiki is a very nice way to store stories about the past but it is
also a clumsy tool.
- Forums, on the other end, talks us about present and future with
smileys, pseudos, signatures and some amount of flaming

Well, I would far prefer to come with solutions rather than just
exposing a task to be done by others. But all I am able to do about it
for the moment is to express the wish and say that I am ready to take
an active part in the solution.

Some ideas about that?

[Mike Willner]

Once we get through testing and shipping AlphaGrips to our backlog of
customers, we'll look into alternatives for hosting an AlphaGrip forum. I
notice that Erk_Dog recommends Invision Power Board.

Mike

[ivanwfr]

Nice!

I have got a positive appreciation on Invision Power Board too.

My son John did this choice for his http://www.casiocalc.org forum with
a perpetual license for 150$ a few years ago. (...now 185).

He is happy with this choice and did not suffer from hackers attack
like the one that has recently wiped the FingerWorks support forum ...
http://forums.fingerworks.com.

These mostly affect those servers with frozen bulletin board systems.
An evolving version won't let back doors opened long enough. Old
versions are far more easy targets!

[Carl Andersen]

This is off-topic, but recently I was pleasantly surprised to see that
bids for the Fingerworks LP on Ebay have jumped to $750, with one
recent auction ending at $1350! I have an LP myself - it didn't work
for me because it didn't address my problem of hitting the keys too
hard. IMO the Alphagrip is a much better solution overall. But the
Fingerworks sure is a technically beautiful system.

Soon I am gonna sell mine though - I need the cash.

[ivanwfr]

To add some to the off topic part:

You had even better with this one reaching 1580$ here:
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=5870025853

To make this point less off topic, I'll open a new subject on The price
tag.

[Erk_Dog]

Not only did I suggest IPB I offered to host a site for anyone that
wanted to run a community portal type site for AlphaGrips for free.

Granted that relies on My generosity versus googles, lol.

Perhaps if Mike doesn't have the time, he could add an FTP and DB user
to his webserver, and one of us could volounteer time to install a
forum?

[Mike Willner]

Actually, I have someone who can help (not free, but at a very reasonable
price, at a minimum he would have to add an FTP and DB user to our
webserver), but I'm still going to need some time to get my hands around the
project. For example, are there any security concerns with regard to adding
an FTP and DB user to our webserver?

Is the majority convinced that this Google Group is inadequate? It seems
very user friendly. I just reply to an email and the reply gets posted
(even with attachments). Does IPB work like that? Is IPB definitely the
way to go? Is there any other reasonable alternative(s) we should evaluate?
What happens to this Google Group if we set up another forum? Will it just
become inactive? Is there a big problem using this Google Group for another
month or so? With regard to not knowing when something gets posted here,
you can set it up to be alerted anytime there is a new post. What other
issues should I consider?

Mike
-----Original Message-----
From: alph...@googlegroups.com [mailto:alph...@googlegroups.com] On

[ivanwfr]

I am quite sure that any decision on this subject definitely deserve to
be made quietly. And I think that this Google Group can do the job in
the mean time. And I don't think that this Google Group is inadequate.
What I think is that a forum is more like home for the community. I'm
sure we can survive for as long as it takes for a good decision.

And I agree with your idea of getting through testing and shipping
AlphaGrips first... Hey, I'm still waiting ;-)

[Karl Guertin]

On 4/5/06, Mike Willner <mi...@alphagrip.com> wrote:
> Is the majority convinced that this Google Group is inadequate?

The groups.google.com interface is not so good at tracking ongoing,
older messages. If you're reading the group via email, it's really not
a problem.

I strongly favor staying with a public group over a private forum.

Private forums are disconnected information silos, so you're stuck
with the forum search engine (which are always bad) if you're looking
for old information. As is, I have my standalone email search, gmail
search, and google groups search to find stuff. I'm not sure if other
search engines index googlegroups, but I'd be surprised if they
didn't.

Private boards are usually not available via email, which annoys me
because I've got almost all my daily information coming through rss
(80 feeds, 10 of which are planets) and email (19 lists). Adding
another site to check means I won't be checking that site.

Finally, there's the administration. I don't doubt that erk_dog is a
fine sysadmin, but I trust google's availability, security, and
systems administration prowess over his.

To answer the ftp/db security questions: Adding a db user isn't really
a problem. Most servers I know of don't run ftp, so depending on what
ftp implementation you use, that might carry some security risk.

[ivanwfr]

I appreciate you review on goods and bads of the different solutions.
Your arguments make much sense. As my feeding experience is less
intense than yours, I have not yet suffered from having too many sites
to check. It may happen though.

Email notification is good, security and availability as well, but I
also like privacy because another name for it is freedom. Public
transportation has its advantages but many have their own for a reason.
Although this freedom is an illusion -- (put the admin burden here) --
feeling at home is something that matters for most of us.

What I miss here for instance is bbcode that allows for some amount of
formatting and embedding graphics and style is completely ignore too.
Even if the purpose of a message is about sharing some idea, I prefer
having the possibility to make it look better than what we have here...
It may come with the non-beta release, who knows?

In a private forum, admins are in touch with members, Google has all of
us to satisfy, that also means no individuals, just everybody at the
same time... What can that accomplish when it takes only two geeks like
us disagree on everything with enthusiasm ... ;o)

[Lee]

Maybe that's MY problem. I just changed my subscription to send me an
email for every message. I was using digest mode and then browsing
through the web interface. Based on Mike's post, it sounds like I can
just respond to an email if I have my subscription set to send me an
email for every post.

[Edmund Ng]

Yes, this is how I read this google group. I stopped using the web
interface not long after joining and getting all messages as emails.

-- Edmund.

--
Edmund C. Ng
nom...@gmail.com

"Old joke about the optimist and the pessimist:
The pessimist says, 'Everything is terrible. It can't get any worse.'
The optimist says, 'Oh, yes it can.'"

[Lee Tumbleson]

And, because I am using gmail, it puts the messages together better than Google groups, anyway.

Caution: Gmail is still BETA and Google is not taking responsibility for your entire mailbox getting destroyed.  Use the POP feature to download a copy of all your messages as a backup.

[Erk_Dog]

IPB will let you subscribe to foums and threads and receive e-mail
notification when someone replies, but it will not let you post via
e-mail.

[ivanwfr]

Google Group has its advantages, no doubt. This means that installing a
forum instead means loosing some of them. Email notification with easy
reply routing is convenient for quick and easy (and durty) exchanges.

But as soon as you put something worth for more than the few people
following the particular thread, the material will soon be swallowed by
the flow.

A forum organization on the other hand is thematic. Space is organized
over topics rather than erratic unrelated streams you can manage only
from their date, their title or the fact they contain some collection
of keywords. Yes Google knows how to search a pile of messages, no
argument here!

Nice to have: Just do not dump Google Group. Let's use it for what it
meant to be, a very quick and easy way to throw something on the table.
When something takes shape, it is always possible to open a new topic
on the forum with a review. We can even drop a few seeds with a link
for Google robots to follow ;-)

[Adrian Sanabria]

I created the group, and I was going through the options to see how
attention could be brought to some of the more "informative" or
"significant" posts, and there is no way I can set a thread or a post
to "sticky" like you can on a forum.

The only thing I could suggest is using the rating system honestly.
You can see highly rated posts from the main thread view. Of course,
then you don't see the ratings if you just look at the emails.

If there is more interest (other than just Ivan) in a full bulletin
board, I could set one up on my websever.

--Adrian

[Matt Westfall]

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Well several people have offered to host a site / forum for AG's lol.

I think a collaborative portal site would be the best thing.

Mike, would you be willing to tell us exactly what you are using for
AG's website?

Perhaps we could form a "board of directors" for the community site, and
then you could give a place for us to put the site.

That way AG still maintains ultimate control over the site, and you
wouldn't have to worry about disputes between the "board" or anything,
because AG could just change the password.

With AG maintaining control of the server space, there won't be any kind
of conflicts based on, "well the site's on my server" etc etc....

I think the google group serves a good enough purpose, but I think we
need a site to collect FAQ, How Tos... key mappings... etc.... and
possibly even a forum.
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[Mike Willner]

Sounds good. Just give me a couple of weeks or so to get caught up with
fulfillment and then we can work on this suggestion.

-----Original Message-----
From: alph...@googlegroups.com [mailto:alph...@googlegroups.com] On
Behalf Of Matt Westfall
Sent: Sunday, April 09, 2006 12:46 PM
To: alph...@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: About messaging on Google Group

[Matt Westfall]

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sounds like a plan bossman ;)

I look forward to having my fullfillment filled tomorrow by the way ;)

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