[plug] Forum Software

[Gavin Chester]

On Thu, 2007-07-26 at 11:07 +0800, Adrian Woodley wrote:
> 
> Gavin Chester wrote:
> 
> > But, guys and gals can't it been seen that the two methods are analogous
> > to open source vs closed source? An email list becomes self-regulating
> > and its members are the maintainers and contributors whereas a forum has
> > an elite moderator (or more) and the success or otherwise relies on
> > their exclusive control of the group (project) by those elites.
> 
> Linux has an elite moderator, his name is Linus.
> 
> The same effort goes into moderating, be it a mailing list or a forum. 
> The advantage of a forum is that the moderators have ultimate control 
> over the publicly accessible information. Find an inappropriate post? 
> *Bam* its not there anymore. Insert an incorrect link to a reply? 
> *Click* link fixed. Find a particularly good/useful thread? *Slurp* its 
> now "stuck" to the top of the list.
> 
> Adrian

all good points and well intentioned. I just repeat that it requires
constant volunteer effort on behalf of the designated moderator and
folks soon get jack of any sort of thankless task in any walk of life.
I've done enough community volunteering to see it again and again. But,
if you're confident it will work ...

Gavin