What Will be the Fate of the Rx Forum?

Question

Hi,

Is the Rx Forum going to remain an official place for discussions about the new open source Rx project or will it disappear?

The new project has its own area for discussions, so it may be confusing to people as to which is being officially monitored, if not both.

Obviously, there's so many interesting discussions and so much content on this forum that it would seem entirely unreasonable to delete it, though I don't think the MSDN forum provides a read-only archive mechanism, does it?  (Feature request? :)

I know CodePlex allows you to hide the discussions area entirely, so perhaps that's worth considering, although that would also probably be confusing to people and certainly would be less convenient for those that don't even know about the existence of this forum.

Thanks,
Dave

---

http://davesexton.com/blog

Answer 1

I hope this forum stays open. I find it the best place for getting well thought out answers and discussions for Rx queries. This is largely due to the participation of yourself Dave and also Bart, James Miles and "Rx Team" :-)

I think Stackoverflow is the other logical option. There are a few guys over there that are answering questions well (Bart, Enigmativity and Paul Betts), and I think it is easier for newbies to join in on SO than having to create a forum user here (my guess is more devs are on SO than MSDN forums). I hope they don't create another faction by encouraging discussions in a 3rd place.

Alternatively, if they could do a safe port of this entire forum onto Rx.Codeplex.com then that would be great for old and new.

my $0.02

Lee

---

Lee Campbell http://LeeCampbell.blogspot.com

Answer 2

Hi Lee,

> I hope this forum stays open. [snip]

Would you agree that a read-only archive is acceptable?  I'd be happy to continue answering questions in the CodePlex discussions area instead, and I assume that you and others would too.  A pinned link to this forum (archived, read-only) would help people to find older discussions, and a pinned link back to CodePlex would help people to create new discussions.

> This is largely due to the participation of [snip]

And don't forget yourself Lee!  Your active contributions to the forum (and external mediums) have been very helpful to people.

> I think Stackoverflow is the other logical option.

I'm not sure that I like the Stack Overflow format.  I've never signed up because it seemed too much like a flaky Q & A site to me, focusing on people's status and encouraging a competition for votes on short Twitter-like comments, rather than focusing on in-depth discussions.  Also, the interface is squished together and feels a bit cluttered.  I think I'm still partial to the open, linear conversational approach of classic forums.  I guess I'm in the minority with that opinion though.  :)

> Alternatively, if they could do a safe port of this entire forum onto Rx.Codeplex.com then that would be great for old and new.

Agreed, that would be ideal.  It might be a lot of work though and posts may lose some fidelity in the process.  I'd be happy to help.

- Dave

---

http://davesexton.com/blog

Answer 3

stack overflow not suited to the exploratory type discussions a subject like rx so richly needs.

I'd be happy enough if the codeplex forum was disabled and we stayed here. Strikes me as the most functional approach. (you see what I did there?)

Answer 4

Most of the time, the CodePlex discussions are pretty empty ... and the forums work better for threads.  I would think that this is a perfectly good spot to communicate, so why not?  Rx questions are a little advanced for most of SO, IMHO,  so they don't get a lot of participation at this time.  Even if they did, most of the answers are going to be the FAQs, not the complicated stuff Dave and James are always answering. ;)  That will change over time, as well, I should think, as Rx increases in adoption.

Answer 5

Dan, Richard,

After some thinking, and based on your feedback, I've changed my opinion.

I feel that both forums (this and CodePlex) should remain available for new discussions, as long as they add an announcement or a sticky note to this forum stating that Rx is now open source and mentioning that there's a new discussions area, with a link.  They can also do the same on CodePlex since moderators are able to add a comment with links to the top of a project's Discussions page.  Double-linking should be sufficient to keep both active and then everyone's happy, right?  :)

- Dave

---

http://davesexton.com/blog

Answer 6

I agree, Dave!  Things may change, but for now, it's fine to have both, and the sticky/announcements should suffice.

Cheers,

Richard