Michael and those still reading, Archives are not the problem. Valuable information vs. the so much BS is the problem. I could care less about cat poop in the bushes, however, due to the nature of the users here, and you've probably seen some new subjects started on an old subject thread, the character of an email/digest forum is the problem. I try to read EVERY message because of this and it becomes a waste of time and anyone that says it doesn't happen often doesn't lurk here much. It happens often, way too often.
Does your email client read the body of the subject mis-named messages and tell you that it's just so much fluff ? Can your email client sort all of the messages with a particular subject or word in the body of the message ? How many people here know what Linux is, yet alone how to code it ? Mark L. could fall down from a heart attack tomorrow or get killed by his FedEx loving dog. Any number of things could happen. Using a email/digest message system will not alter that. It is a moot issue to think nothing can go wrong. Besides, whoever is archiving it now can keep doing it and hopefully they will live forever. Michael Gaskins wrote: > Forgive another post on this thread which has itself gotten a little > off topic. > > I'll preface this by saying that I make heavy use of some forums for a > lot of my other hobbies, and I even went so far as to create my own > domain with a forum that I never really went out and advertised > (http://www.kitaircraft.info/phpBB2/index.php if anyone is > interested). The problem with web based forums for aircraft kits is a > question of archives. Most people prune the databases on forums > periodically (if only to save space), and if the website eventually > ceases to operate then even if they weren't expiring posts then all > that data is gone. > > With an e-mail based mailing list though, one can easily keep track of > the posts. My email client auto sorts all building lists into > appropriate MBOX formatted files and a Linux cron job then backs up > those files once per week in the case of hard drive crashes. This > level of archiving means that even if I don't have time to read the > list for a few days, or if something is brought up before I start > building (which I haven't started building), I can always go back and > reference that material. > > A web forum wouldn't work well for this sort of thing IMHO. > > Michael Gaskins >
