[Coco] Mailing lists vs web forums (was: OS-9 Book)

[Steven Hirsch]

On Tue, 29 Jun 2010, Aaron Wolfe wrote:

> To me, a mailing list is vastly superior to a web forum.  Instead of
> visiting a dozen or so web pages just to know what is going on, I
> simply open my email.  I could organize messages in any fashion that
> I'd like with simple inbox rules (I don't, never saw much point in
> organizing my inbox :).  I can forward a message to someone not on the
> list directly from my email client, I can reply directly to someone
> rather than publicly just as easily, I use whatever editor I like to
> compose my messages, I can search years of content that spans several
> projects *and* my direct correspondence in one place, etc.
>
> If you are involved in many projects, mailing lists are the only way to go.

Heh.  We are experiencing similar tensions with regards to internal forums 
at the company I work for.  The executives want everyone to leap into Web 
based forums so they can pull the plug on the nntp servers and save... 
pennies.

The engineering community is pushing back hard.  Most of us made it clear 
we would simply stop monitoring and posting to any of the groups unless 
they were available on nntp.

Personally?  I think the web-based forums are a tool of the devil.

Steve


--