On Wednesday, 23 March 2016 at 22:26:15 UTC, Walter Bright wrote:
Newsgroups are like the C++ of forum technology...
Don't conflate the NNTP protocol with the shortcomings of
whatever newsreader you're using. Mine, for example, does spell
checking. (Thunderbird FWIW)
Spell checkers don't catch everything. If they did, there would
have been many fewer edits to make in my manuscript for Learning
D. They can't catch phrases that are worded ambiguously, or that
come off in a way they weren't intended. They can't sentences
that are incorrect, but that you didn't realize until after you
posted. And so on. Every time I find I've made a mistake in
something I post in these forums, I have to make a new post to
correct it. And I'm not the only one. Just look how often people
reply to themselves with a sed command.
NNTP is a dinosaur. Modern forum software offers so many features
that people take for granted now. I fully understand why people
find it annoying that those features aren't available here. A few
years back, there were a couple of threads suggesting a move to a
real web forum and I know where you stand on the issue. But as
the community grows, it's absolutely going to become a necessity
to make the transition at some point. I would even argue that
continuing to rely on NNTP as the backend may actually hinder
forum participation because people just aren't used to it. The
web interface presents a web forum, which it totally is not in
modern terms.
I spent a lot of time in my newsreader through the 90s, but that
was then. Let's move into the 21st century already!
