[TxMt] Re: Actual Forum?

[Fritz Anderson]

Let me add to the head count (Lord knows I can't match the volume) on  
this.

I greatly prefer a mailing list, especially for a topic like TextMate,  
which is well-defined and comparatively low-traffic. Most of the  
traffic is interesting. If the topic were something like "DSL  
service," with its exponential variants of vendor, hardware, locale,  
usage... then a searchable, hierarchical knowledge base makes sense.  
This list doesn't come close to those requirements.

I also like it that when I ask a question on a mailing list, the  
answer itself gets delivered to me. On a forum you essentially have to  
go through a separate mailing-list subscription process for each  
thread of interest -- and even then, the mailing contains a link for  
logging in to read the response, not the response itself. Again,  
probably useful if the topic isn't focused, but not on a list that can  
be doubled in volume over the question of whether it should be a list.

It is idle to say a forum generically indicates (to one person) that a  
vendor provides better support, or that there is a better community.  
In the real-world case of TextMate, the vendor and community support  
are excellent. Whether a mailing list "says" to one person's mind that  
there isn't support, or that the sponsor isn't way-cool, is  
irrelevant. In the real world, the support is there, and the way-cool  
goes into the product, not into customizing a forum and prosecuting  
its innumerable bugs.

Foregoing excellent product support, or even an excellent product,  
just because some of that support doesn't come through a web browser,  
is perverse.

The title of this thread, "Actual Forum," is really pretty  
patronizing. This mailing list is an effective tool by which a healthy  
community does in fact communicate, and well. It doesn't need a  
centralized server to validate it, or make it more "actual."

	— F