Re: Comments on iSeries Network

[Hans Boldt <boldt@xxxxxxxxxx>]

Dave Odom wrote:
> What do you all think about the iSeries Network.   This seems to be the
> place that IBM recommends as it "Forums" for iSeries.

My thoughts about the iSeries Network can be found a few paragraphs into 
 this posting. But I can't resist putting in my two cents worth on 
other on-line discussion groups as well.

I'm not sure what the official corporate decree on the subject is. These 
days, monitoring on-line discussion and answering questions is a normal 
part of our jobs here. But speaking for me, no one has specifically 
directed me to do that in any particular place. That said, I think we've 
generally gravitated towards a small number of on-line places. For me, 
out of about a dozen web-based fora and mailing lists, there are only 
two or three that I regularly visit.

In my opinion, the best fora are these hosted by David on midrange.com. 
It may not be as slick and polished as others, but several factors give 
it the edge. First, you have a choice of how to view the discussions. 
Some prefer e-mail, others like me prefer using a news client to view 
the discussion at news.gmain.org. Second, midrange.com has a very good 
archives. Third, the archives can be reached by the GoogleBot. Other web 
fora that require registration can't say that. Fourth, the quality of 
the discussion is in my opinion better than the rest. Fifth, David 
provides just the right amount of moderation, letting discussions wander 
a bit but not too much. (These factors are not in any particular order.)

The second most useful location is the iseriesnetwork.com. Of the 
web-based fora, this has the most useful format, IMO. Although the pages 
are high-bandwidth and load slowly, it's nice to see all the postings in 
a particular thread. A negative factor is that you need to pay to see 
all of the interesting content.

Another place I sometimes visit is the RPGIV group at Yahoo!Groups, but 
the web-based interface is somewhat awkward. There are a number of other 
on-line sources, but few are interesting enough to bother with. I used 
to visit mcpressonline.com occasionally, but the signal to noise ratio 
there is disappointingly low, in my opinion. I don't know if things have 
improved in the past year, but that site could be improved with better 
moderation of the discussions as well as better peer reviews of its 
technical content.

Cheers! Hans