On 23 Aug 2000, at 14:31, Norbert Bollow wrote:
> I disagree here. Personal, one-on-one communication is done more
> efficiently via the telephone. The big strengths of email are:
[...]
Actually, looking at email from a long term perspective, email has always
been, and I suspect always will be, probably the best means of one-on-one
communication. If anything, I think the telephone will start to go by
the wayside as things continue --- Truly symmetric telephone calls are
rare --- as a rule, one party was looking for the other, and that other
may or may not wish to deal with the first party *right*then* [but you
hardly have a choice if they manage to catch you, do you?]. Requires
that the called-party be findable. That the parties want to talk at the
same time [which isn't such a slam-dunk when one is in Hawaii and the
other in Berlin].
Some of the *biggest* wins of email, as sort of the killer-app of the
early ARPAnet, was [and for *one*on*one* communication, and, IMO, still
is and will be]:
1) it was fast. Just a minute or so from anywhere to anywhere else --
not so for mailing lists, where this one (list-mgrs), for example, seems
to have a one or two hour delay built in, and most incur some sort of
delay --- but one-on-one is, generally, seconds-in-transit
2) it eliminated time sync/zone considerations --- folks in europe
could send email to us and we'd get it when we got in in the morning...
we would send replies and they'd get it at the start of [their] next day,
3am or so our time, etc]. for the first time, the night-crew [the guys
who'd come in at 4PM and work 'till sunup] could actually constructively
exchange info with the day-folk...
3) it eliminated the problem of figuring out where someone was.
Generally, telephones only work if you know the number where the person
happens to be at that moment [not actually true now, with folks able to
have national-roaming cell phones, but few ordinary folk have such toys].
But for email, a person could be on a trip or at a conference or even on
vacation, and get your message and reply to it with little or no delay...
no need for the "while you were out" message to sit on your desk for 14
days...
4) It allowed reasonable time management... Telephones are incredibly
intrusive. I'm pretty disciplined and if I'm busy I just let the thing
ring, but that drives my wife *insane*... as a rule, if you call me I
was almost certainly doing something else and whether I am happy talking
to you or not, the fact is that you interrupted me... with email, it
just waits until I feel like messing with it and if I'm busy and can't
get to 'routine correspondence' [much less 'random hobby-mailing-list'
traffic, which is ghettoed off into a low-priority folder], that's fine
and I get to it at *my* pleasure.
On the other side of the coin, I'm not sure I like mailing lists much...
I've been on a lot of them, from the very start [human-nets and such] and
I have to say that I think that the usenet news machinery is a *FAR*
better medium for many-to-many discussion forums. Email is probably OK
for announcements, but I really prefer newsgroups for 'discussions' and
if every 'discussion' mailing list I'm on went away and became a
newsgroup, I'd think that'd be just fine and thing's be better for it...
Offhand, I can't think of a persuasively good advantage of mailing lists
over newsgroups... [authentication and access and such is a problem with
usenet, not with newsgroups machinery... there's no real problem setting
up 'private' newsgroups [just as you can have 'private' mailing lists]..
you can even robomoderate to only allow 'registered' folk to post to the
newsgroup [much like the way mailing lists only allow subscribed-folk to
submit]]...
[ps, as a side comment on what I think is the ultimate damnation of
mailing lists as an effective medium, I see that the report chuq pointed
us at recommended that ALL mailing lists have 'digest' available and that
that be the *default*... sheesh... As I've said here, the continued
existence (much less popularity) of digests are just an apologetic for
bad mail-handling clients (showing how unsuitable 'email' _is_ for
handling discussion forums) --- or if you will, the clearest indictment
that mailing lists are mostly losers as the medium for a discussion
forum. Digests should have died 20 years ago when their obvious
shortcomings were apparent...
/Bernie\
--
Bernie Cosell Fantasy Farm Fibers
mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Pearisburg, VA
--> Too many people, too few sheep <--
