Sheesh, I hope we didn't lose mecheng.
Steve, I feel your pain, and I don't see junk email getting any better (is "better" the right term?). That's one reason why I started the forums. Someone on another list I'm on sent the following reasons for using a web forum-based communication system vs. an email discussion list. He makes some good points and gave me permission to re-post his thoughts.
Paul
Begin Quote:
You can read the forums without having an account, but you'll need an account to contribute to a thread or start a new one. Use the "Register" link at the top if you want to get a free account.
The forums offer several advantages:
(1) The forums are searchable. All of us know that there is no shortage of people who obviously (1) don't bother to search the mailing list archive before posting their question, or (2) did search (thank you) but couldn't find the answer, or (3) didn't even know there was an archive. Granted, in the forums, it is also clear that many people don't bother to search for an answer before posting their question. And there is no evidence when someone does search and find an answer (they leave no trail of success!). But we can safely assume that using the built-in search capability in the forums is easier than manually perusing the mailing list archive.
(3) The forums are truly threaded, so it's easier to follow a thread than it is to trace it through various subject changes in your email.
(4) The forums offer a more systematic interface to the information you want to get or provide (we don't have the variety of html mail, background images, html or graphical sigs, etc., or changes to the subject line introduced by various email clients). Not a big deal, but I like the consistency in the forums that you don't get in email (yes, I'm picky).
(5) The forums do support various text formatting and html, but within a standard interface.
(6) the forums have smileys... again, no big deal, but sometimes an emotional context is important in written communication, especially in an international audience.
The one disadvantage to the forums is that it takes more resources -- bandwidth and storage -- to support. The mailing list essentially distributes this burden more among the list members.
It seems to me that the mailing list has been very successful in its
relatively short run. There has been lots of good participation,
there are many regular participants, and a lot of useful information
has been disseminated. In fact, I have, on several occasions,
considered abandoning the mailing list altogether, and just sticking
to the forums. What has kept me from doing so is that I think the
mailing list has generally been more active and has, overall, been a
better source of information. Of course, many users don't know about
the forums; even people who used them prior to their temporary
removal.; it directs them to the mailing list (perhaps because of the
resource
issue?), so greater participation in the mailing list is to be
expected I guess.
What I think is really a shame is that there are two different
resources for help, but the service they offer is not so different as
to require two different resources. There is a lot of overlap between
the two, so it seems like wasted effort when similar topics come up in
both. What's worse: there have been good threads in the mailing list
that, in my
opinion, have no equivalent in the forums. Likewise, the forums
contain a lot of information not to be found in the mailing list. It'd be
nice to have a single resource with all of this good information and all of
these helpful participants.
End Quote
> Oops
> sorry you got me on a bad day. Just finished deleting about 25 spam
> messages, todays batch, all offering products and services. Even had one
> telling me that I had won a prize........
> Then I opened the email below.
> My fault. Apologies.
>
> Cheers
>
> Steve McKenzie
Received on Sun Mar 16 05:27:00 2003
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