>> I have to say that I think that the usenet news machinery is a *FAR*
>> better medium for many-to-many discussion forums.
> My biggest argument against newsgroups for every discussion is
> the waste of it. Every newsgroup that is carried on an international
> basis must be carried on every news server that is hosting these
> groups.
I can't see that as much of a problem. There are two rather different ways
you can use usenet software. One is the traditional approach used for the
well known groups like comp.whatever, sending usenet traffic to a bazillion
servers all over the world. The other is private groups on one server or, if
traffic merits, a few servers.
I've moderated comp.compilers for a long time, and it's doubtless sent to
100,000 servers all over the world. But there are a lot more than 100,000
readers, so the total number of copies stored is considerably less than if
each message landed in everyone's mailbox. This is the case for pretty much
every traditional newsgroup I can think of. For private newsgroups, the
savings are even more extensive.
> But, as far as digest forms are concerned, I use them extensively,
I send my high-volume mailing lists through a home-brewed gateway to my news
server and read them as news, no digest needed or wanted. (Indeed, for a few
lists that only arrive as digests I explode them back to individual
messages.) Digests are a poor substitute for newsgroup software. As an added
benefit, my local users can tag along and read the lists I have there without
having to subscribe separately and without having to transmit and store
separate copies over the net.
Regards,
John Levine, [EMAIL PROTECTED], Primary Perpetrator of "The Internet for Dummies",
Information Superhighwayman wanna-be, http://iecc.com/johnl, Sewer Commissioner
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