This all started with good intentions. It’s really a shame if it results in anyone feeling they’re being dragged into something against their will.
As a Discourse fan, I wish any of you feeling that way would instead consider the following…
Discourse, for those who don’t want a hassle, is very easy to set-up to operate pretty much just like the Google Discussion Group. Admittedly, if you aren’t interested in taking advantage of its additional features, that does raise the, “So what’s in it for me?” and the “It ain’t broke, so why fix it?” questions.
I can certainly understand those questions. However, I hope you’ll consider another way of looking at it.
Coming over is low-cost to those who don’t want to deal with big changes. Meanwhile, it’s a huge benefit for to those of us who are trying to do things with it to help the INA.
My biggest personal example: A few years ago, about a dozen of us (representing nearly two centuries of combined Nonsuch experience) contributed to putting together the Nonsuch Buyers’ Guide, and the New Nonsuch Owners Quick Guide. It was, to be honest, a lot of work for the contributors. As the organizer and editor for both, it was, to be even more honest, a hell of a lot more work for me.
I did one update to those documents since, and I’m already feeling burnt out.
Discourse gives me ways of collecting, organizing, and re-using its content that Google makes extremely difficult. If information for updates pops up because people are posting in Discourse, using it to update those publications is easy enough for me to be willing to continue. If not, not.
Here’s another example. Discourse also has features which make it much easier to pull together information into Wikis (informative articles for those of you who aren’t IT nerds). I’m currently running the INA survey and seeing requests for the INA to start posting how-to articles and location-specific information like good shops, surveyors, and insurance agents.
I can see low-effort ways to set those up and keep them up-to-date if people are posting in Discourse. Not so, in Google.
Third example. I did a quick-and-dirty analysis of the 6000+ separate threads created in the life of Google Discussion Group. I can’t give you numbers, but I can assure you that there’s a lot of threads that are really the same, and a lot that should’ve been split into different topics. Can’t fix in Google, can in Discourse.
While I was typing this, Paul Miller made a good comment about it being important that we all keep helping each other when we are able to. In that spirit, consider using Discourse as a way of helping those of us who are trying to help you by pulling information together.
If you’re largely an INA information consumer, it may not matter to you which tool you use. But, the choice you make has a big impact on whether it’s easy or hard for us would-be information producers to produce information for you.
A few statistics. INA has about 650 members. Although lots post questions, there are at most around 10-15 folks (about 2%) who reliably post answers. Of those, maybe 5 of us (about 0.75%) are putting effort into packaging that information to make it useful to INA members.
If it’s not a lot of work (and I really don’t think trying Discourse is), could you consider trying Discourse simply because it makes life easier for the small group of people who are willing to do that work?
Instead of thinking of trying Discourse as you giving something up, consider thinking of it as you giving something back to that small group of helpers who develop and maintain the services INA provides. At low cost to you, you’d be doing us a big favor.
My $0.02.
– Bob
(Who wouldn’t need to tell you that he’s with
Me Gusta, Nonsuch e26U #233, in Marina del Rey
'cuz Discourse takes care of that)