I’m not sure if it makes sense to argue about individual cases here. The point is, that we can’t predict that future cases won’t happen. If the majority thinks this is not a valid concern that’s fine, that’s why I think a vote makes sense.
I admit that I only found 4 posts this year, all others seemed to be fine on first glance. You could argue that some belong to the Meta category. Well, I still think we should keep the category for future uncategorizable stuff. I explained it above, if I’m the only one who thinks that, fine, let’s get rid of it.
First 2 are not our problem, second 2 are “one time in a life” occasions.
In German there is a saying “wo ein trog ist sammeln sich die schweine”.
Transferred to the forum it would mean - if we have a category for people to write non ownCloud related questions then people will write non ownCloud related questions that active members of the community have to deal with.
anyway I am voting yes on removing the “other” category.
Both of you are right, @dmitry and @lefherz. OTOH, having a catchall category like ‘Other’ means we will have more work, one more category that requires to be cleaned up regularly. So the arguments of @dmitry are IMHO somewhat stronger, I’ll also support getting rid of the 'Other" category.
However, huge thanks to @lefherz for your efforts.
In my optimistic world, I see central as an entry point for the community. People can ask a question in here and when waiting for an answer to his question, he/she can read other topics, join any discussions as well.
Because of that, it is better to get a question in terms of productivity and growth of the forum, even if it is in the wrong category. I agree with @lefherz to keeping a category for this kind of situations.
However, if central is only a support portal and if we want to reduce support tickets, removing “Other” category makes sense. That’s my two cents.
i’m also in favor of dropping the “Others” category at all for various reasons:
It is often just wrongly used (i had just moved a topic from there a few minutes ago into the correct “server” category).
Opens the door for people to not make any effort to think about which category could fit. Just “dump” it into the others category.
It will be used for questions not related to ownCloud
If central had hundreds of active users answering questions IMHO it could make sense to allow non-ownCloud related questions. But with the current user base of a few active users (which is very likely also not increasing by allowing non-ownCloud related questions) i would even close non-ownCloud related topics directly.
This is IMHO far too rigid, unfortunately it’s not that simple.
If the form of a question makes clear that the questioner has absolutely no clue on linux, networking and refuses to read any documentation, most of the help we can supply is on those topics.
So who decides, when a question goes out of oc scope, has to be closed?
Example topics: raspberry, Docker and all that vm stuff etc.
If you don’t want to answer a question, don’t answer it. That’s fine I don’t think there needs to be a decision on that. It could always be that someone else wants to answer a question that is out of scope. So I’d suggest not to close topics where you are not sure. If they are asking questions about ownCloud administration, it would be very rude to send all of them away - and who knows at which point you actually need ownCloud-specific knowledge to solve a problem.
Then we drop the “Other” category. I will post a proposal later and pin it for a week, so the community can veto if they really need one of the categories we want to drop, or if we didn’t think about all of the effects our restructuring could have.
Then we have a bunch of “no reply” topics. This does not look good. This looks either like this forum is dead of no one cares. This is at least my opinion.
Okay, I deleted the old categories and tagged & moved the topics to the correct categories.
Thanks to everyone for the collaboration and constructive discussion!
what I did:
Tagged & Moved topics
Development/Client Development -> tag
Development/Client Development -> Development
Development/oC Internals -> tag
Development/oC Internals -> Development
GSoC -> tag
GSoC -> Development
Apps -rename> Server-Apps
Server-Apps/Themes -> tag
Server-Apps/Services -> tag
Server-Apps/Themes -> Server-Apps
Server-Apps/Services -> Server-Apps
Other -> Server
Server/Hosting Area -> tag
Server/Hosting Area -> Server
Server/oC modifications -> tag
Server/oC modifications -> Server
Server/Help -> Server
Server/Server-Enhancements -> tag
Server/Server-Enhancements -> Server
Desktop Client -rename> Desktop
Desktop/Desktop-Help -> tag
Desktop/Desktop-Help -> Desktop
Desktop/VFS -> tag
Desktop/VFS -> Desktop
Desktop/Desktop-Enhancements -> tag
Desktop/Desktop-Enhancements -> Desktop
Android/Help -> tag
Android/Help -> Android
iOS/iOS-Help -> tag
iOS/iOS-Help -> iOS
Marketplace -> tag
Marketplace -> Server-Apps
Deleted Categories
Client Development
oC Internals
GSoC 2017
GSoC 2018
GSoC
Themes
Services
Other
Hosting Area
oC modifications
Server-Help
Server-Enhancements
Desktop-Help
VFS
Desktop Enhancements
Android-Help
iOS-Help
Market-Help
Market-Changelog
Market
I don’t think there needs to be a decision on that. It could always be that someone else wants to answer a question that is out of scope. So I’d suggest not to close topics where you are not sure. If they are asking questions about ownCloud administration, it would be very rude to send all of them away - and who knows at which point you actually need ownCloud-specific knowledge to solve a problem.
Have a nice weekend!