Nigel Metheringham wrote:
In a forum you (or the person controlling the forum) decides how it looks to me, how I search it, how I interact etc.
I think it's easier to customize forums (or provide themes) than to write your own email client.
With a mailing list
I decide how it is presented, filtered, organised, searched. With a mailing list I also have a standard storage form to work with (an RFC822 message), with a forum its all locked up in someones little paradise....
Yes, the web is a much less useful standard than RFC822.
Even if you get the "ideal" forum software, your ideal may not be my
ideal.
Your ideal isn't my ideal since my ideal is not a mailing list.
You can tell me how to do those things if you wish, however my
response will be "fuck off" unless I an close enough to just hit you.
So if you're telling me that by switching to forums I'll be missing out on this high level of discourse, I don't think you're making much of a point.
Frankly forums are implemented by people who misunderstand mailing
lists.
"Frankly"? I think you mean "In my opinion".
The word "frankly" implies that, up to this point, you have been dissembling. I might accuse you of many things but I wasn't going to include dishonesty.
So if you tell me that I need to use a forum the answer is "Over your
dead body!" (and yes the pronoun is correct).
Wow, first expletive now death threats. I definitely vote for whatever format is least likely to involve Nigel.