They are uniformly unfriendly when viewed from this end of the relationship. nabble for instance reposts stuff into the mailing lists that is missing critical portions. stackoverflow doesn't seem to think they have any responsibility to give back at all.
Stackoverflow gives back by providing an interface people want to use. It is free (as in beer) and is hugely popular.
I think one of the greatest things that Stackoverflow brins isn't actually the interface (I for one can't stand it, but I'm clearly not the target group here), but it's the fact that they have the *userbase* of people. We have a userbase of "people already using postgres and many of them having done so for some time because there's a threshold to get over to join this mailinglist thing". Stackoverflow has a userbase that is orders of magnitude higher, because they provide a venue for people to ask questions about *anything* -- so they can use the same venue to ask about their programming language, their framework-du-jour, their database, their operating system etc etc.
This is one reason why I don't think having PostgreSQL dedicated web forums would actually be very interesting today. Those people who prefer to use the web as their media are more likely to already be using other platforms which bring them *more value* than a PostgreSQL dedicated forum ever would. And they don't have to sing up for Yet Another Account. And they can work on whatever credit-style-kickback their favorite platform does.
We need to be embracing these external communities because it is where our growth is. I run into people every single week that absolutely refuse to join these lists. They want nothing to do with email and they have good reason.
Fully agreed. And I think we're better off doing that than to try to rebuild our own version of those communities.
Personally, I couldn't stand going through StackOverflow on a regular basis trying to check if Postgres related questions are answered or not etc. Luckily, we have other community members who *are* willing to do that, and they make that platform work. So I'm very grateful for those people doing it, even better that it's not me.
And also, if somebody wants to take another stab at trying to make web forums for PostgreSQL, I say let them try. I don't think it would work, but I'd be happy to be proven wrong.
