Pyfora, a place for python

[Paul Boddie]

On 5 Nov, 12:47, Alan Franzoni <doesnotex... at franzoni.invalid> wrote:
>
> Ok, when speaking about "forums" I meant a web-accessible public
> discussion group, something like those based on phpBB or Invision.
>
> But, as they correctly told me, this newgroup/mailing list is already
> web-accessible via Google Groups, so there would be no need for other
> web-based mirrors.

I think that the community should try and make people more aware of
the options. For example:

http://www.python.org/community/lists/
http://wiki.python.org/moin/MailingListsAndNewsgroups

(These resources need work, of course, and I encourage people to edit
the Wiki-based resources and make them better.)

Certainly, it's possible to read existing discussion venues - to avoid
the overloaded term "forum" ;-) - using Web browsers, and I've seen
Nabble promoted in some communities for this very purpose when people
wanted to set up a "Web forum" because they didn't like mailing lists.

I find Web forums inefficient, often full of "low-density" content
(which then clogs up search results), and many of them give the
impression that they won't be around for very long anyway. That said,
there can still be understandable reasons why people want to have such
forums, not limited to cultivating a small-scale community with an
emphasis on getting to know others who are at the same level of
expertise, typically with a social dimension that probably seems
superfluous to those of us who use comp.lang.python and prefer that
the discussion mostly remains focused on the topic of the group.

Paul