[plug] plug mailing list vs Forum

[Craig Ringer]

On Thu, 2004-06-24 at 19:50, johnmorcos wrote:
> [H]i
> [I] have recently joined the mailing list and as much as [I] enjoy its
           ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
                 
> nature really find it time consuming wading through all the emails. 
> 
> I was wondering what everyone thought about us having a forum instead
> of a mailing list.

If you mean web-based forums, I most vehemently disagree with the
suggestion. I personally loathe them, finding them incredibly annoying
to read and even worse to respond on. Web forums also seem to make it to
easy to post & run, leading to (in my experience) a _vastly_ lower
signal to noise ratio.

With a mailing list, I can use the interface of my choice, any filters
or other automation I may want, easily take discussions off line, and be
notified of discussion by an interface I use many times every day
already. All mailing lists provide me with the same central, convenient
interface, w/o having to trek off to various websites.

You appear to be using the WestNet webmail services. It is perhaps not
surprising that this interface is less than ideal for reading a fairly
high volume mailing list. Nonetheless, it probably at least provides the
ability to filter mailing lists into folders. I would suggest to you
that if you want to improve your interface to the list, you look at
approaches that you can do yourself before asking everybody else to
change what they use. A good mail client might be a nice start.

If you in fact mean a gateway system that doesn't interfere with the
current mailing list, then I can't say I'd have any objections.
Volunteering?

> [I] think that the mailing list should only be used for say the topic
> of the day or mass announcements etc.

> [I] dunno[, I] find it easier just to spend time concentrating on whats
> important for me at this point in time so [I']m not fishing around. [N]ot
> that fishing around and reading things that [I] wouldn[']t generally read
> is bad or something [I] don[']t do already.
> 
> [I] just find that with the archive abilities of a forum [I]

... or a decent mail client ...

> can use it
> more like a library of information that [I] can search a topic[.] 

I do that quite nicely with PLUG as it is. As added bonuses, I don't
need to rely on the PLUG site being up at the time, I can do much more
specific searching than is possible with forums (or most web archives
search systems), and I can do it quickly. I'm not convinced.

--
Craig Ringer