On 7/24/07, Ted Lemon <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
Worrying about your email address being exposed is pretty silly. That's like worrying that the ice on a pond will break when it melts in the spring and your house will fall in. Don't build your house on ice.
Exactly, build it on solid ground (a web forum). I'm guessing that's not what you really meant, but I'm still not sure your point is. Are you saying that if you don't want your email address harvested by spammers, then you should not participate in discussions about openmoko at all? Keeping your email address private IS a valid reason for the use of forums.
As for forums, they are very nice for casual use. They are terrible for staying in touch, unless you visit them obsessively. The nice thing about a mailing list is that the mail keeps arriving in your inbox, you see it go by, and you can pay attention or not as you choose. And if you miss something, it's easy to go back and find it.
There are plenty of ways of "staying in touch" when using a web forum. Almost every forum I have used has some way to "subscribe" or "watch" particular threads. When you visit the site, you can view a list of all your subscribed threads that have been updated since your last visit. You also have the option to get email notifications each time(or as daily/weekly digests) those threads are updated. In my opinion the best thing about forums as compared to mailing lists(although I'm not advocating *replacing* mailing lists in any way) is it dramatically increases the *Signal To Noise Ratio*. Some people just don't want to read every damn conversation remotely related to openmoko. They want to ask their specific question, and be notified when they get a reply. Or they can search for their particular issue, find some existing thread, and subscribe to that one. This is what makes forums great. Hans Loeblich _______________________________________________ OpenMoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community