On Wednesday, December 11, 2002, at 02:49 PM, Derek Glidden wrote:
> On Wed, 2002-12-11 at 14:08, Aaron Steimle wrote:
>> Was this something that people would be interested in. If so, I was
>> going to
>> get some space at phpwebhosting. I would have no trouble putting
>> something
>> like that up. I might need help actually setting it up. I wouldn't
>> mind
>> doing it as long as people would use it.
>
> I have very mixed feelings about this. I think if people want to have
> their own web-diary thing (I hate the terms "weblog" and even more,
> "blog". Don't use them around me in person unless you feel like being
> punched...) they should go set up their own or find someone to host it.
> I don't particularly like the idea of trying to tie something like that
> to the SLUG list. I like mailing lists,
Hey, I like mailing lists too.
> I dislike web-based discussion
> methods, and I would be concerned that discussion would move off the
> list, or that a large amount of the discussion would turn into "I have
> a
> question. check my latest entry at... http://blahblahblah/ " as the
> entirety of the message.
You know, I really appreciate the way Ian goes into so much depth with
his answers to people's questions. You raise a pretty good point...
could a web forum co-exist with the mailing list without one eating the
other? I don't know. I am fairly certain that the web forum would
dilute the mailing list somewhat, some of the dilution will probably be
good, some not-so-good.
> "I think web forums are one of the most horrible side effects of the
> Internet explosion for a few reasons:
I disagree, I think that they're one of the best and could quite
possibly be the future of online discussion.
> * A web browser "textfield" is an extremely sucky editor. Everyone has
> their favorite email clients, but there is (except for extremely rare
> exceptions) only one interface to the web forum and you MUST use the
> one
> given to you whether you like it or not. (and personally, I've NEVER
> seen a web forum interface that I didn't at least marginally dislike;
> most are really despicably horrible.)
Well, the web was never really designed for this purpose. I generally
use an editor and paste, but I know that Mozilla's textbox editing uses
emacs key bindings. That is a very nice touch. Either way, liking or
disliking a particular interface is 100% subjective. I don't much care
for the mailing list interface. Sometimes I leave my computer on at
home and leave the mail app running. So all day it snatches my mail
before I can view it at work. So, I have to wait until I get home to
read anything. This is pretty lame, but I suppose I can only blame
myself for not quitting out of the mail app first. Sometimes I'll see a
thread at home, before work, and want to comment on it, yet there's no
time. So I have to forward the pertinent messages of the thread to
myself at work, then get there and have to reformat the quoted reply
(probably losing the proper thread id's in the process). This is quite
a bit of work, but I'm used to it.
> * Invariably the forum messages are going to be stored in some
> proprietary format with proprietary access methods (i.e. stuffed into a
> database that can only be gotten to through the forum) and in a central
> location with no hope of having your own local copy to browse offline
> or
> search with your favorite email client or even tools like "grep". (And
> with one central repository, if there is ever a drive crash and no
> backups, that's all gone forever.)
As Ian pointed out, there is XML. And as Russell pointed out, they can
post to a list or someone can subscribe to an email digest of new
topics.
> * A web forum REQUIRES that you perform an action to participate - you
> MUST visit the website to read anything; it doesn't just magically show
> up in your INBOX as with a mailing list, where you can then choose to
> ignore/file/delete or reply/participate as you might feel at that
> particular moment. If you don't click on it regularly, you are no
> longer able to even passively participate.
Comparing web forums to mailing lists assumes that we want to replace
the mailing list, which I don't think is the case. For that reason, I
think I'll sidestep that argument.
> * Web forums are subject to the whims of the Internet - if your route
> to
> the server at that particular moment is down, you can't do anything,
> and
> you have to either sit there clicking "Reload" waiting for it to come
> back or give up and hopefully remember to come back later.
Sure, but anything having to do with the internet has these problems.
You agree to these terms when you plug in the cable :-P
> Email will
> queue up until the connection comes back - you might not get it
> immediately, but you WILL get it eventually through no extra effort on
> the part of the recipient.
>
> Forgive the semi-rant, but I simply don't understand the fascination so
> many people have today with using web forums instead of a simple
> mailing
> list."
Not instead...
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