[TxMt] Re: Actual Forum?

[podperson]

Hamster-4 wrote:
> 
>>> and a mailing list? Actually I don't see a difference.
>>
>> There's no difference, but you're against forums.
> 
> Err actually there's a huge difference between forums and mailing lists.
> 

You do realize you're arguing against *yourself*. OK, sorry, I've beaten
that dead horse enough.


On a forum you can't sort and organise posts.

The forum is organized already so you don't have to do it. OK you may not
*like* the organization much as you may prefer Dewey Decimal to Library of
Congress (those are Library cataloguing systems by the way) but it's
certainly easier for most people not to have to sort through the library
themselves.


On a mailing list I can delete the threads I'm not interested in

Yes, because you have to keep a complete copy of the darn thing yourself. Of
course if you're not on the right machine or don't have access to the right
mailbox you're SOL.


I can move the ones with helpful tips into one folder, I can move  
> messages relating to particular topics into other folders and  
> basically organise the incoming emails into whatever system works best  
> for me.

I'm one of those strange people who prefer to let Librarians catalog
libraries.


I can block emails from people that I don't want to hear from,  
> I can set entire threads to ignore.

Most forums let you ignore specific users. Some let you ignore threads.


And if I don't want to have the mails locally, I don't have to do that  
> either. I can just read them via imap.
> 
> Forums are just page after page after page of HTML links. I can't move  
> them around, organise them or delete them.

Yes there's no software on the planet for managing lists of HTML links. Oh
wait, there is.


To me, that's a huge difference and the reason I don't like forums. I  
> can't organise anything to my liking - mailing lists are far more  
> flexible.

Once again, they're flexible because you have to maintain your own complete
copy of the thing.

I dragged Real Software kicking and screaming to using forums (they still
use mailing lists as well). I did it over a period of *years* by maintaining
my own forum site that got more traffic than their (official) mailing lists.

Their basic mailing list's thread list viewed as a web page is *41 screens
high* for *July*.

Their forum has over 100,000 posts (in about two years) and -- owing to
design I don't care for -- is about 1.5 screens high.
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