On Sun, 28 Sep 2003, costas wrote: > I think back in the startup days mailing lists did the job but, given the advances > that have been made to bbs software it would beehove using them. > > Here is some issues with emails that bbs software solve. [...]
I will counter with problems that web-based forums have: 1) A connection to the Internet is required. Oftentimes, especially with dialup situations and while travelling, it's difficult to be online enough to read web-based forums. A good, high-traffic list like asterisk-users is great for long flights or immigration queues. 2) You need web browser software. While not that big of a problem these days, it still means firing up Opera and using that. One could use Lynx, I suppose. 3) Those f***ing smileys. 4) Limited search/archival options. With this list, there's a couple different sets of archives out there, which get indexed regularly by Google. As long as people use accurate Subject: lines and proper threading protocol, all goes quite well. 5) Sloooooow. When you're dealing with hundreds of messages per day, having to wait a couple of seconds for the next message to come up is unacceptable. I could perhaps go for the Usenet method of doing things. In fact, an ideal solution would be an e-mail to Usenet gateway. To keep spam down, it could be one way -- to post, you'd e-mail in the response instead of posting it to the newsgroup. In addition to sending the message to all who want the e-mail, it'd go out NNTP-style and end up on Google Groups, for the web interfaceness. DISCLAIMER: I've tried following web-based forums, but in general, I've found myself unable to do so. As such, I lean very heavily against moving mailing lists to web-based forums. I also usually use e-mail software which is quite good at handling busy mailing lists, so I've grown lazy. :-) -rt _______________________________________________ Asterisk-Users mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users