KDE Relaunches Community Forums

KDE users have a new online spot to get together and talk about their favorite desktop environment. The KDE Forum re-launched this week and is already over 17,000 members strong. There are plenty of categories that cover everything from troubleshooting Internet and network issues to canoodling about new styles and themes.

KDE developer Sebastian Kuegler says, "The new forum uses the bulletin board software MyBB offering users, developers and people interested in KDE a place to help each other, discuss KDE-related topics and exchange ideas. The KDE Forum complements KDE's UserBase, the home for KDE users as a valuable support resource."

Kuegler says the existing categories are simply a starting point and community members are welcome to request more. Future plans for the KDE forums include integration with KDE's existing infrastructure to notify members of new posts via IRC bots, mailing list messages, and RSS feeds.

While the previous KDE forums assigned moderators to specific categories, the new forums will be managed by super-moderators whose permissions will allow them to edit threads and posts across the entire board.

Of course the idea of project- or distribution-specific forums is nothing new, I'm always glad to see these kinds of message boards get some TLC. While longtime or hardcore Linux users typically gravitate toward IRC to chat with community members, many people prefer a message board format and the more options a newcomer has, the better.