[plug] Re: mail-list vs news

[James Devenish]

In message <200409111546.22146.alexander.nordstrom at tpg.com.au>
on Sat, Sep 11, 2004 at 03:46:21PM +0800, Alex Nordstrom wrote:
> I doubt you would be able to download just the headers with NNTP if you 
> insist on having your own NNTP server, either.

LOL I think the point of all this is that PLUG would run its own NNTP
server -- people would not be asked to run their own! However, this also
implies more resource consumption on the PLUG servers (incl. disk space
to store additional copies of all the messages). If I understand
correctly, Bernd has been recommending leafnode2-based servers. One
problem is that we have not clarified how authentication would work.
My wish is for us just to be able to use our Mailman passwords and
subscriber addresses (i.e. let Mailman be the authoritative source of
permitted subscribers and passwords, rather than creating a separate
web interface for creating newsgroup accounts).

> if the capability and willingness to maintain a dual-protocol forum
> exists, there is obviously nothing wrong with that.

Personally, this was always what I had always envisaged. We had a
million-message thread about it in June, although it appears that some
of the participants did not preserve the threading correctly (mutt shows
the threads correctly using heuristics, but Mailman and Lurker seem to
have had trouble). I think it has been discussed on other occasions,
too. There have been ideas about: more e-mail lists vs web fora vs
newsgroups.

<http://mail.plug.linux.org.au/pipermail/plug/2004-June/thread.html#54497>

I agree that it is an issue of personal preference, and there I continue
to advocate list<->group equivalence.