On Monday 24 April 2006 04:50 am, Tom Spear (Dustin Booker, Dustin Navea) wrote: > n0dalus wrote: > > In a way this holds for mailing lists as well, but I think > > the difference is that forums usually have: > > - Large sections containing non-technical discussion > > - 'Post counts', often used as a measure of status > > - Signup date, also used as status symbol > > - A visible power structure, being able to see which posters > > are moderators/admins. In a mailing list people tend to treat > > each other more as peers. > > - Graphical avatars and signatures > > - "See who else is online" features > > > > Without those things, such as if you implemented a simple web > > interface on top of the mailing list, I don't think there > > would be as many cliques. > > > > n0dalus. > > Apparently I like the clique-ish-ness (try saying that 5 times > fast ;-) because I like every last one of those features.. I think this is true for the folks who like forums. These things are, as far as I can tell, the only things people on mailing lists can't get or do (with the exception of creating large sections for non-technical or off-topic discussions). All the other "advantages" of forums discussed here are easily implemented by any mailing list subscriber who cares to implement them through their e-mail client, through webmail, and through using Google or Yahoo!'s specific-site search features. The one exception I note -- the large sections of non-technical discussion -- on every mailing list I've subscribed to, when there was a lot of interest in "off topic" discussions, a new mailing list was created for just that purpose. So having non-technical discussions is no problem with mailing lists either. deedee -- Registered Linux User #327485 _______________________________________________ wine-users mailing list wine-users@xxxxxxxxxx http://www.winehq.org/mailman/listinfo/wine-users
