Wow. What a wacky take on things. I think the distortions we're seeing are due to the fact that you're asking the question on a mailing list, which still has some members that have never done it any other way. But 'web' forums are much older than mailing lists (they used to be called 'bulletin boards') and can do anything a mailing list can and then some.
Web forums can be set up to send you emails when people post. And they can even be set up to take your email responses. This isn't a particularly popular way of doing things, but it's not unheard of. It's hard to draw a direct comparison because a lot depends on how things are set up. This list for example, allows no attachments at all. In fact, it doesn't even allow you to underline or bold your text. And it doesn't store any messages. I'd like to say the biggest difference is that mail lists require you to receive new messages in your email as soon as someone sends them. This is true on this list, but Yahoo 'mail' lists allow you to browse online and never actually ever receive an email from them at all! I think the real reason web forums have taken off lately is because they're just better at handling large amounts of messages in a universal threaded manner. Today's email clients have gotten better at threading, but once a discussion goes beyond 10-20 posts, few people want to store all that at home. Of course, even this is changing with clients like Gmail as there's almost no reason to ever delete a message. Still, pick any busy forum and try to imagine dealing with that amount of email. e.g. the Corvette Forum (http://forums.corvetteforum.com/) with 75,000 posts last week. No Way! My own small community forum had 1257 posts last week; no one person wants to read a tenth of that, so why would anyone want to receive all those emails? ************************************************************************* ** List info, subscription management, list rules, archives, privacy ** ** policy, calmness, a member map, and more at http://www.cguys.org/ ** *************************************************************************
