[TYPO3-UG US] Newsgroup discussion

[Gregory Remington]

Michael Stucki wrote:

> If that number is true, I think your forum is quite inactive. Almost every
> topic is answered by _you_ only. This has two consequences:

Yes, it has taken me months to slow thåe forum down to it's current 
inactive state since the last newsletter. That is another reason I also 
take so long to answer posts. The ability to increase and decrease forum 
traffic is a luxury atm... at some point I/we will have less control.

> - Since you are the major expert in this forum, all users who want
> professional support will hire your company.

Not if I begin outsourcing work to other companies. Part of the business 
model for mediatech is refer work to developers who are working on 
extensions needed by mediatech.

The forum is one way to give something back to the the non commercial 
community and at the same time serves a commercial purpose. The balance 
between commercial and non commercial open source interests makes an 
interesting economic model.

> - However this will only work as long as the situation remains like that.
> What happens if 20% of your 4000 users would answer to these topics?

Then I will have to assign moderators who share similar commercial and 
non commercial interests. Phase 2 of mediatech will be initiated by a 
newsletter to all 4,000 members. This will occcur once I have created 
another free template and discussed a strategy with partnering projects. 
The idea is to generate an economy through free works. A GNU webmaster 
gave me the idea ;)

> See above. This forum of 4000 users (did it just start?) has only 1621
> messages. So I wonder

Most of the subscribers are the result of template releases. The forum 
is being used to debug the templates and to get a better understanding 
of where they are being used.

Mediatech is positioning itself for template sales and customization and 
extension sponsorship for commercial use. Before this can happen as many 
questions as possible need to be answered relating to basic installation 
and setup issues so can I spend less time answering questions later 
after ecommerce is initiated.

> - if it is so new (but why does it have 4000 users already?)

It's not new. This has been going on since the early days of CHC Forum. 
This is why you see me sponsoring CHC Forum. It is vital to my business 
model which includes growing open source communities.

> - or if it is too inconvenient to use?!

Only when I don't answer posts... naturally in a business environment 
moderators and newsletters can be used to keep the forum active.

> If a newsgroup <-> forum gateway was possible, that would be nice, yes.

Template sales and commercial projects can be used for the commercial 
sponsorship for such a project. There are a few projects I would like to 
be able to afford to sponsor. I'm hoping we can launch an open source 
business initiative using a business model that meets the approval of 
the GNU/FSF.

> For example I just had a look at
> your forum. In one message [1] which I would never have found without your
> link, you write that you improved some of the documentation.
> I just wonder, why you didn't send it back to me so that I can improve the
> upstream files, too?

I didn't really improve anything but consolidated and pruned 
documentation to make it easier for me to understand. The reason I never 
sent you the documentation is I honestly didn't think my efforts would 
be included in the official documentation.

Until recently I have had little time to work with so all my energy has 
been focused on the Forum, templates, learning TYPO3, SEO on Google and 
an economic model for open source. I will send future revisions to you 
in the future to look at.

Kind regards,
Greg