Re: RARA-AVIS: Re: Forum Format

From: Patrick ( malone.ps@gmail.com)
Date: 18 Feb 2008


I rarely post, but usually read, so I'm chiming in here.

A more fundamental issue to to me is "push" vs. "pull."

The basic problem with web-based fora is one has to go to each of them to read them (and typically have to work through several layers to read several topics), versus with mailing lists having all of them come to one place. If one subscribes to 20 or 30 or more mailing lists on a variety of topics, the web-based approach becomes quite a barrier.

And for many years now, it has been in many or most POP and IMAP clients a simple issue to filter out discussion topics that are not of interest.

Pat

On Feb 18, 2008 10:52 AM, Mark R. Harris < brokerharris@gmail.com> wrote:
> Spelling is a minor issue; the full range of functionalities is a major
> issue. A key point: the way Yahoo Groups is set up, I can receive all
> emails; a daily digest; or no emails at all. What I can't do is decide which
> topics and threads are of interest to me and receive update notices on just
> those topics. Once you have gotten used to the ability to do that, the lack
> of ability to do it is frankly somewhat infuriating. Think of all the
> annoyance that was created by the endless back-and-forth on Altman's The
> Long Goodbye, which could have been easily resolved if people could decide
> to subscribe to that thread or not, based on their preference.
>
> Formats move on and improve. The "no frills" approach strikes me as
> antiquated and very lacking in user-friendliness, and I am scarcely a
> technological determinist.
>
> Mark
>



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