This is an important lesson drawn from observing FreeBSD. Relying on forums and mailing lists as informal archives results in fragmented knowledge, duplicated effort, and confusion for new users. We should avoid repeating this mistake.
The forum should function as a space for active discussion, collaborative problem-solving, and informal support. It should not be treated as a permanent source of truth. Using a forum in that way is comparable to relying on an email inbox as a documentation system. It is inherently disorganized, impermanent, and difficult to search reliably. Ideally, forum content should be considered ephemeral, with older threads being archived or expired after a defined period, such as ninety days.
The core issue remains the limited scope and depth of the official documentation on ReadTheDocs. Until the documentation is comprehensive and regularly updated, users will continue turning to the forum for definitive answers. This leads to inconsistent and often conflicting guidance.
The correct approach is to treat the documentation as the primary reference. When consensus or verified solutions emerge through discussion, they should be written into the official documentation. That documentation must be concise, versioned, and aligned with the actual system behavior. It should evolve as the project evolves. This ensures that users have a consistent, trustworthy foundation rather than a scattered collection of forum posts.
