Under the "What's Happening" section, I recommend that it should also be noted:
One of the main reasons for email mailing lists to forum change is to give greater "control" to OpenSRS on discussions.
This is definitely part of the reason, but not quite for the reasons you outline...
Two major changes:
1. Forums allow OSRS staff to lock certain threads that get too long or off topic (Whether or not we as a whole are interested in the discussion)
Hmmm...not sure why we would ever want to do this - nor do I think that our software even allows us to do this! :)
2. Forums allow OSRS staff to delete certain posts (especially ones where someone is politically denouncing OSRS or its staff members like what happened to Ross on Jan 16th), etc.
This has never been an issue in the past - we're all big boys and girls over here :) BUT, deleting certain posts has come up from time to time in the past, and I'd be lying if I said it wasn't a small part of our motivation to move to the Forum/RSS/NNTP environment. A few times in the past, including one notable occasion when I opened my big mouth inappropriately, we have had extremely important legal reasons for needing to clear certain posts out of the archives. Now we have the flexibility to do so effectively.
With that being said, this capability is but one reason why we are moving to the forums and newsgroups. Truth be told, the primary reason is simply that mailing lists don't allow us to do a lot of things that we want to do - not effectively at least. Things like making the archives more useful, allowing syndication via RSS, providing reseller and staff only access to specific groups - generally, using more effective tools to build a better community. We're also motivated by the fact that we're using three or four different tools right now and wanted to standardize on one technology internally. Forum/RSS/NNTP gives us the flexibility that we're looking for and some additional administrative efficiencies that make it a no-brainer.
We're hoping this move carries substantial benefit for everyone.
Thanks for the opportunity to clarify these points.
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-rwr
Contact info: http://www.blogware.com/profiles/ross Skydasher: A great way to start your day My weblog: http://www.byte.org
