There are many refinements possible in flexible topic management, filtering,
supertopics, subtopics, etc, IF you assume that the end user has access to a
Web based control interface for his or her "profile" on your list. The Web
is great that way - the feature set would be limited only by your
programming imagination - and I hope to see more examples of this approach.
But let's also remember that LISTSERV and its imitators were originally
designed to ensure that, in an era when computers were changing fast and
capabilities varied widely, even the clunkiest old mainframe's oppressed
serf users could still participate in discussions and announcement boards
like everyone else. I would argue that this philosophy is why we're still
using and talking about mailing lists today in the era of 3-D shockwave
smellorama hyperflash-apps and optic nerve avatars and whatnot. It's why
Chuq can have a million s_bscribers.
The dialectic Ivan and Chuq bring up - "Better tools!" vs "Better user
behavior!" - has been around since the beginning, and will probably always
be around. But it may be that, 10-15 years after the inception of the
e-list, we're ready for a new take on things. Using the Web for purely
optional control of a list that still gets delivered (in some form per user)
via traditional email: this is probably an idea whose time has come.
Requiring the Web, plus Java, flash, etc, for ALL aspects, including reading
messages and the rest of it, is something I'd resist.
