Bart Schaefer wrote:
On Fri, May 16, 2008 at 8:08 AM, Carol Anne Ogdin <caogdin@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Les Mikesell questioned, "...who would go there to post any answers?" The
answer is the same people who share here...and probably many more who find
this sparse medium harder to navigate.
I, for one, would be unlikely to go there to post answers. (Not that
I'm a font of answers here, but see for example the zsh mailing
lists). All forum software that I've used (which clearly doesn't
include all forum software that exists) amplifies two of the most
significant problems with asynchronous group communications: (1)
failing to start a new thread when one should be started, and (2)
starting a new thread when one should not. This happens on mailing
lists too, of course, but at least with email I'm entirely in control
of how I organize it, so I can re-group messages at will. Using forum
software I'm forced to accept whatever (dis)organization the
moderators or originator of the message chose.
(If someone knows of forum software that doesn't have this problem --
that gives every user control over how his view of the postings is
organized -- I'd be thrilled to hear about it. But if you want to
tell me on-list, start a new thread. :-)
There is software that can gateway between forum views and email lists
pretty much transparently but it doesn't fix any problems you might have
with either view of things - like making neat threads out of a
conversation that drifts over more than one topic.
Some samples here: http://www.backupcentral.com/phpBB2/
--
Les Mikesell
lesmikesell@xxxxxxxxx
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