The D programming language newsgroup should lift its game

[Mike Parker]

Jordi wrote:
> Kyle Mallory wrote:
>> On 4/1/10 10:51 PM, Justin Johansson wrote:
>>> Nick Sabalausky Wrote:
>>>
> <snip>
>>
>> Kyle
>>
> 
> I second all this. I understand D is not a "corporative" project backed 
> up by a huge marketing team or anything like that, but better managing 
> of its image and communication channels (in usability and appearance) 
> would help it a lot.
> 

A big start would be ditching the newsgroups for proper forum software. 
I know a lot of people here prefer the newsgroups, but like it or not 
this is 2010. Newsgroups are from yesteryear. People who weren't online 
in their heyday don't expect to have to use them (for that matter, there 
are those who *were* around and don't expect to have to use them). When 
someone checks out a project for the first time, it's quite common these 
days that one of the first stops is the project's forums. No forums? Ah 
well, too bad. Next project.

These days, you can't expect people to have a newsreader installed by 
default. Nor can they be expected to know how to use one. And as for the 
web interface, compared to the quality of forum software out there it is 
horribly substandard.

Furthermore, a forum can yield some useful activity statistics that you 
just can't get from a newsgroup. That help in gauging the interest in D 
itself as well as specific areas/features, moreso than TIOBE/# of DMD 
downloads/# of nesgroup posts.

Walter has iterated his gripes with forum software more than once. But 
in my mind, the downsides of web forums are far fewer than those of 
newsgroups, especially when viewed from the eyes of many of today's 
twenty- & thirty-somethings.