[plug] plug mailing list vs Forum

[Bret Busby]

On Thu, 24 Jun 2004, johnmorcos wrote:

> 
> well thats about 8 different people that have responded to this
> question, id like to hear what the other plug members think.
> 

One way to encourage feedback, would be to use punctuation and 
appropriate upper case and lower case letters, to make the messages 
readable. And, perhaps a spell checker, and proof reading. Last time I 
looked, "id" was the deep subconscious of the mind, and, what was 
regarded as responsible for the creation of the monsters that killed, in 
"The Forbidden Planet", the only film of which I am aware of Leslie 
Neilsen in a serious acting role.

And, do you want responses from PLUG members, or from subscribers to the 
list? They are not necessarily the same,and more subscribers to the 
list, probably exist, than PLUG members.

A mailing list is far more useful than a web-based forum. I have had 
significant problems with some forums (fora?), including access ("you 
need IE to use this forum" - now, that would be amusing for PLUG to 
use...). Also, to access a forum, continuously, requires being 
continuously logged into a forum, or, logging in and checking it from 
time to time, then logging out, to end the session whereas using a 
mailing list, just requires having an email application running.

As a person who subscribes to over a hundred mailing lists, I find PINE 
to be quite good at dealing with them, and, filtering the messages into 
the many folders, that are easy to peruse. The functionality in PINE, 
that allows messages to be sorted as wanted, whether it be in order of 
arrival, sorted by sender, sorted by subject, or sorted by thread, etc, 
would cope with what you want, quite easily.

And, what do you do, with a forum, when you decide that it is 
appropriate to reply to the poster of a message, rather than to the 
forum as a whole? use email? Why not then, use email and a mailing list, 
which makes responding to either the forum or to the poster of the 
message to which the response is being made, much simpler?

It is a matter, I suppose, of how much you want to trade off efficiency 
and ease of use, for gimmicky whistles and bells.

I would rather be able to easily and efficiently, read the messages and 
respond to them.

Thus, using mailing lists and PINE, a solid and functional email 
application, is the best solution, to me.

-- 
Bret Busby
Armadale
West Australia
..............

"So once you do know what the question actually is,
 you'll know what the answer means."
- Deep Thought,
  Chapter 28 of 
  "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy:
  A Trilogy In Four Parts",
  written by Douglas Adams, 
  published by Pan Books, 1992 
....................................................