17125 - Community page misses newsgroups (and needs to be updated)

Status: VERIFIED FIXED

(www.mozilla.org :: General, defect, P3)

Description

[Ben Bucksch (:BenB)]

At least rt-messaging is missing.

Comment 1

[Gervase Markham [:gerv]]

This bug has not been touched for more than nine months. In most cases, that 
means it has "slipped through the net". Please could the owner take a moment to 
add a comment to the bug with current status, and/or close it.

Thank you :-)

Gerv

Comment 2

[David Krause]

At this point it would probably be better to wait until the newsgroup
reorganization finishes before this bug can be fixed.

Comment 3

[Risto Kotalampi]

Moving to correct component.

Comment 4

[Risto Kotalampi]

Moving to marki. Part of a bigger project.

Comment 5

[Risto Kotalampi]

Moving to Markus.

Comment 6

[Risto Kotalampi]

Moving tickets to Ray.

Comment 7

[Risto Kotalampi]

Mass changing IC's ticket to reflect current situation.

mozilla.org, AOL employees:

If you want IC to look at issues reported in bugzilla, please open a Helpdesk
ticket and ask it to be routed to AOL R1 Server Operations. We currently have no
way to handle comprehensive problem resolution through bugzilla. This is not a
change in the way we are supporting mozilla.org - we are still supporting you on
the level as before. IC's support is based on Helpdesk ticket system - not
bugzilla which only few hard-core people are looking at. 

Also, projects are handled elsewhere - not in bugzilla. If you have projects you
need us to deliver please feel free to contact me directly.

Summa summarum: tickets -> Helpdesk
Project initiations -> [e-mail]

Comment 8

[Daniel Wang]

-> Endico

I'm reviewing our newsgroup status and will be posting a patch soon.
This is what I have so far:

Add topical forums
  netscape.public.mozilla.reviewers
  netscape.public.mozilla.qa
  netscape.public.mozilla.porkjockeys

Add project forums
  netscape.public.mozilla.performance
  netscape.public.mozilla.performance.size-matters
  netscape.public.mozilla.style
  netscape.public.mozilla.rt-messaging

Add reference to
  netscape.public.mozilla.test

Note and review links to inactive forums:
  netscape.public.mozilla.patches

  netscape.public.mozilla.checkins
  netscape.public.mozilla.layout.checkins
  netscape.public.mozilla.calendar.checkins
  netscape.public.mozilla.crypto.checkins
  netscape.public.mozilla.unix.checkins
  netscape.public.mozilla.xpfe.checkins

  netscape.public.mozilla.rhapsody
  netscape.public.mozilla.platform

Forums I'm not sure about:
  netscape.public.mozilla.qa.*
  netscape.public.mozilla.crash-data

Fix links (bug 151728)

Comment 9

[Brant Gurganus]

Daniel, here is information from the recent link scan of the whole site that you
should probably fix as well:
http://mozilla.org/community.html
	http://help.netscape.com/nuggies/
	  \_____ error code: 404 (not found)
	http://www.netlabs.org/warpscape/
	  \_____ error code: 404 (not found)
	http://mozilla.org/ports/rhapsody/
	  \_____ error code: 404 (not found)
	http://reality.sgi.com/rhess_engr/beos/bezilla/
	  \_____ error code: 404 (not found)
	

http://www.w3.org/TR/WD-xslt
redirected to: http://www.w3.org/TR/xslt
linked from page(s):
	http://mozilla.org/community.html

http://home.netscape.com/comprod/products/communicator/future/aurora.html
redirected to:
http://wp.netscape.com/comprod/products/communicator/future/aurora.html
linked from page(s):
	http://mozilla.org/community.html
	http://mozilla.org/rdf/doc/aurora.html

http://japan.cnet.com/Newsmakers/Mozilla/
redirected to: /services/error/check.htm
linked from page(s):
	http://mozilla.org/community.html
	http://mozilla.org/status/2001-09-06.html

http://www.be.com/support/qandas/beos.html
redirected to: http://www.beincorporated.com/cgi-bin/redirect.html
linked from page(s):
	http://mozilla.org/community.html

http://www.troll.no/products/qt.html
redirected to: http://www.trolltech.com/products/qt.html
linked from page(s):
	http://mozilla.org/community.html
	http://mozilla.org/docs/source-directories-overview.html

http://www.troll.no/qtmozilla/
redirected to: http://www.trolltech.com/qtmozilla/
linked from page(s):
	http://mozilla.org/community.html

Comment 10

[Daniel Wang]

Gerv, what do you think about marking these newsgroups as inactive?

  n.p.m.qa.browser
  n.p.m.qa.editor
  n.p.m.qa.i18n (this has become a i18n version of .test)
  n.p.m.crash-data
  n.p.m.patches
  n.p.m.checkins
  n.p.m.*..checkins

Comment 11

[Gervase Markham [:gerv]]

Seems reasonable (assuming they are inactive - did you check? :-)

Gerv

Comment 12

[Daniel Wang]

Gerv, I checked. Some of those newsgroups have been abandoned by
their intended audience for at least a year or so. Some still have
some activities, but none of them has any recent on-topic posts.

What do you think about n.p.m.reviewers and n.p.m.porkjockeys
(and maybe n.p.m.qa.general)? Should I list them at all? The cvs
change log doesn't tell me why these old newsgroups never get listed

Comment 13

[Daniel Wang]

Attachment: community.html (incomplete)

I'm withdrawing my involvement with mozilla.org, so someone
please complete the work

Comment 14

[Daniel Wang]

*** Bug 190242 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

Comment 15

[Todd]

Hi All,

   The link (help.netscape.com) on community page that sends end users to the
proper newsgroups does not exist.

   Humble suggestion: put the actual newsgoups in place of help.netscape.com:

General <snews://secnews.netscape.com:563/netscape.mozilla.user.general>
Windows <snews://secnews.netscape.com:563/netscape.mozilla.user.win32>
Macintosh <snews://secnews.netscape.com:563/netscape.mozilla.user.mac>
Unix/Linux <snews://secnews.netscape.com:563/netscape.mozilla.user.unix>

--Tony
[e-mail]

Comment 16

[J.O. Aho]

I must say that the snew server is to lagish for me even thinking about go there
and read. There is a real need to get at least a newsgroup out to the usernet,
most of all IMHO the n.p.m.g should be haded over to the end users. 

Comment 17

[Markus Baur]

What is happening here? 

First of all the newsgroups are public and nobody forces you to read the mozilla
newsgroups on the mozilla server. 

Second, I don't think the server is behaving sluggish at all. A year ago or so I
upgraded it from a Sparc-20 with 192MB RAM to an E220 with half a gig. It now
supports about 600 concurrent users at peak times. If you have any real data on
sluggishness, I'd appreciate it.

Comment 18

[Gervase Markham [:gerv]]

mbaur: I tend to find reading news on news.mozilla.org quite sluggish also. It
takes a long time for each message to download after it is requested, and to
change groups. How would I go about obtaining the data you are looking for?

Gerv

Comment 19

[Markus Baur]

Gerv, J.O.: 

I just took a closer look and you're right: There was an expireindex gone astray
and eating up all the CPU power. I found the server had corrupted one of its
index description file and run into and infinite loop.

I repaired the file and killed the expireindex. Please let me know if you find
the performance still sluggish.

The server is definitely due for a memory upgrade with the current userbase, but
from my perspective it should be far from it's performance limits yet.

- Markus

Comment 20

[Gervase Markham [:gerv]]

mbaur: that really feels a whole lot better. It's obvious even from over here.
Thanks very much!

Gerv

Comment 21

[Brant Gurganus]

I was unsure of the legality of the search form at the top because it uses
Google without mentioning it.  I sent a message to Google to make sure that
usage is okay.  If not, we probably just need to add the Google logo or
something like that.

Comment 22

[Daniel Wang]

Attachment: community.html

done. review & comment please

Comment 23

[Daniel Wang]

Attachment: patch

I avoid reordering the forums so that changes would show in .diff

Brant, when you change something, can you keep code reformatting and content
change separate?
When you mix 'em together, it's very hard to see exactly what content you've
changed.

Comment 24

[Brant Gurganus]

Comment on attachment 121589 [details] [diff] [review]
patch

I think "../" makes more sense for the Up link.

The stylesheet link is added by the site generating scripts, so it is
unnecessary.

I like the home, up, search, and glossary links.  Perhaps those should be
mentioned in the style sheet bug.

If it doesn't look significantly different, the search form would be better
without the table markup.

Watch the "an" vs. "a":
 "an open source", not "a open source"
 "an IRC", not "a IRC"

Due to CVS, I don't see the necessity to comment out old stuff unless it is an
old link that is temporarily broken or something like that.

To make the document shorter, I would rather separate the netiquette part into
a separate document.

Other than that, I'm not seeing any issues right now.  Daniel, when do you have
mozilla-org checkin privelidges or does somebody else need to check it in once
it is completely finalized?

Comment 25

[Gervase Markham [:gerv]]

- Please remove the newsgroup reorg link.

- IMO, the end-user forums should be on a separate page.

- Your yellow/red blocks need left and right margins, and much less top and
bottom padding.

- I'm not convinced by the layout of the sections for each newsgroup, or the
contents. I think we need a more compact representation, which clearly
identifies newsgroup, mailing list, subscribe and unsubscribe links. How about a
table?

Gerv

Comment 26

[Daniel Wang]

re Brant
> If it doesn't look significantly different, the search form would be better
> without the table markup.

but I like it this way :-p

> To make the document shorter, I would rather separate the netiquette part
> into a separate document.

but then woudn't people just post w/o reading the netiquette? (on 2nd thought,
does anyone read it?)

I think we should link to http://bugzilla.mozilla.org/page.cgi?id=etiquette.html
and edit the ground rules to be more consistant w/ Bugzilla etiquette.

How about a newsgroup-faq.html (or community-faq.html?) If we have that I could
also make the documentation FAQ shorter.

> Daniel, when do you have mozilla-org checkin privelidges or does somebody
> else need to check it in once it is completely finalized?

no cvs previlege here

re: gerv

> Please remove the newsgroup reorg link.

alright

> IMO, the end-user forums should be on a separate page.

yeah, we probably need it. http://www.mozilla.org/start/1.0/faq/enduser.html#11.1
is linking to the nuggie page which is now non-existent.

> Your yellow/red blocks need left and right margins, and much less top
> and bottom padding.

moz.org style issue. we should avoid css hacking

> I'm not convinced by the layout of the sections for each newsgroup, or
> the contents. I think we need a more compact representation, which clearly
> identifies newsgroup, mailing list, subscribe and unsubscribe links. How
> about a table?

we could do it, but I am not sure how we should organize the newsgroups.
The current topic/project distinction seem ambiguous to me.

Comment 27

[Daniel Wang]

Attachment: community-etiquette.html

Comment 28

[Daniel Wang]

Attachment: community.html

browser forum added
reference to T-bird and Firebird added
still need to check the links

forums in table now, per Gerv's suggestion

question: what are the diff between Java and OJI forums?
question: does Layout forum also cover parser?
question: I'm putting platform-specific forums at end of
  the project forum list. Should I also put GTK and Qt
  forums there? (all other forums sorted alphabetically)
question: where does Midas belong?

Comment 29

[Ben Bucksch (:BenB)]

I personally liked the old layout (without tables) better.

Wording: It's not a "forum", it's a "newsgroup" (and mailinglist).

Comment 30

[Daniel Wang]

Gerv, in http://www.mozilla.org/quality/ n.p.m.qa.* newsgroups are listed.
I list n.p.m.qa.* as inactive forums since QAs appear to have abandoned these
newsgroup. Should we remove n.p.m.qa.* from the QA page or should I move
QA forums up as active project forums?

re: Ben
but "forum" is so much shorter than "newsgroup (and mailing list)", and
that was the original wording from jwz. I think we should keep it ;-)

Comment 31

[Gervase Markham [:gerv]]

n.p.m.qa is dead; n.p.m.qa.general (at least) is active.

Re: forum - use "forums (mailing lists and newsgroups)" first and then forums
throughout (which is what you've done.)

I will try and review community.html this weekend.

Gerv

Comment 32

[Daniel Wang]

gerv, would you mind advise on the format? should I keep the table or
revert to list?

btw, got my cvs account :-)

Comment 33

[Gervase Markham [:gerv]]

etiquette.html:

- Put the definitions in bold.

- mozilla.org forums should use well-trimmed bottom posting throughout. Do not
be afraid to say so. You might even give examples.

- "public vs. developer" - please rephrase this. No-one should get their head
bitten off, and they have every right to complain if someone tries.

community.html:

- The format is fine - I think it's very clear, although the links should be
like this:

<a>netscape.public.mozilla.webtools</a><br>
[e-mail]:<br>
<a>subscribe</a> | <a>unsubscribe</a>

This is to make it clear that the first is a subscribe link and not a posting link.

- You should mention the mailing list whitelist - you can only post to the
mailing lists when on it. (You should be told so when you try anyway.)

- Your quick links should use the sensible names - e.g. Real Time Messaging
rather than rt-messaging. 

- n.p.m.reviewers is still active - it gets all [e-mail] mail.

- There's no need to say "This forum is for discussions about" on every entry.
It's fine to say e.g.:

Calendar            The standards-based Mozilla Calendar project      <links>

- You need to work hard to reduce the amount of words at the top of the page.
Some stuff can be simplified, other stuff can be moved to the bottom (e.g. the
stuff about syndicating the groups.) We should aim to have the first newsgroup
on the first screen when the user visits.

- Where is the "other" link in the first para supposed to go?

But, this is definitely an improvement on what we have now. :-)

Gerv

Comment 34

[Daniel Wang]

checked in

leaving whitelist out of this because my experience is that
posts from invalid mail addresses still go through the mailing
lists. first-time posters are still alerted of whitelist by
mail though, so we may need something on that...

-> fixed

Comment 35

[Gervase Markham [:gerv]]

Oh dear. I was going to mention this - please don't put any new files, such as
the etiquette document, at the top level - our website tree is crowded enough
without that. Please create a "community" directory for other documents related
to community.html (which, sadly, we can't move.)

Gerv

Comment 36

[Gervase Markham [:gerv]]

Daniel: ping? Could you please move
http://www.mozilla.org/community-etiquette.html into a community subdirectory?

Gerv

Comment 37

[Daniel Wang]

I was told I can't delete a directory in CVS, so I will wait for some input from
Asa. (bug 206106).

verify.

Comment 38

[Gervase Markham [:gerv]]

You can't delete a directory in CVS; but nothing I've requested asks you to. I'm
confused. :-)

Gerv

Comment 39

[Ben Bucksch (:BenB)]

Gerv, take daily 10 ml of our new SuperClueGlue(TM) and you'll no longer be
confused. Order now at 00900-CLUEGLUE.