On 21/10/12 09:41, Rory O'Farrell wrote:
On Sun, 21 Oct 2012 05:07:24 -0300
Fernando Cassia <fcas...@gmail.com> wrote:
-No captcha to solve anywhere to join a mailing list.
- No separate user-password to remember on a mailing list.
- You can read it anywhere you can get e-mail
- You don´t have to conciously go "fetch" or "look at" anything.
Email arrives "automagically" to your inbox.
- no waiting for forum web pages to load, no adverts, no footers, no
colors, no graphical sig files, no animated gifs to look
at, no delay to "log-in", messages just arrive to your mailbox
- Easy archival (just set a rule and archive your list email to a
given subfolder, or a given label if using GMail)
- Reply speed (many people´s work day involves reading and replying to
e-mail. A mailing list ensures messages with catch the interest of the
reader are clicked on and read immediately, or much faster then when
"visiting a web forum once a day".
- Sense of community: participating on a any mailing list for a period
of time helps breed a community feeling. Avtivity on web forums is
much more sparse... many people just join a forum to ask a question,
and when given an answer that suits them, they rarely return... they
do not "engage" as often as members of a mailing list.
- in part due to the above, it´s much easier to deal with
troublemakers, spammers and trolls etc on a mailing list (just ban his
email address) than on web forums.
-web based forums are more prone to spam than mailing lists (even with
the implementation of captcha for registration by many popular web
forums software)
-web forums are part of the involution of the Net... (imho)
Without wishing to generate a long controversy, I'd answer Fernando like this,
based on the en-Forum:
Captcha only on registration - a one off event; I don't think one can complain
about such a reasonable anti-spam measure.
One can tell it to log one in automatically on each visit - I'm currently able
to access the Forum (auto-login) from six computers.
One can subscribe to a thread for notification, or (my choice) check "new
postings" (link towards top of Forum screen). This only works if one has subscribed
to the forum,
No need to archive - the Forum does it automatically and provides a targetted
search facility.
Replies can be almost immediate, depending who is online.
Sense of community applies among the Volunteers, who are chosen from regular
and helpful posters. Admittedly many posters post to find a solution to one
problem and are never seen again - surely this is the same on a mailing list?
Troublemakers and spam are dealt with very quickly by the Moderators, aided by
reports from Users and Volunteers.
I think the en-Forum's spam record is better than the old OOo Forum and the
current LibO Forum, although I recognise the work done on those forums by their
administrators
Another matter to consider: if the Forum(s) did not exist and the queries were instead
posted to the mailing lists, could the list users cope with the added volume? I reckon
there would be about 100 postings per day from the en-Forum, and certainly as many
(perhaps even more) from the other national language Forums. And after that, there would
(inevitably!) be many daily "Unsubscribe me" requests from posters whose quer
has (hopefully) been answered.
Technical aspects are bets handled through a mailing list; general user
questions are best handled through a forum.
Let's not go round in circles again.
Dave.
