[Diy_efi] comments on reorganizing lists

[Bernd Felsche]

On Tuesday 07 February 2006 13:24, Steve Ravet wrote:
> I've thought about moving the lists to the forum style format that most
> other internet groups use -- corral.net, thirdgen, etc.  I've been
> opposed to this for some time, liking the email format these lists have
> always used.  So I've put together a list of what I think the pros and
> cons of each are and I'd like to solicit some discussion and opinions on
> whether a switch would be good or bad.

Mailman (IIRC) provides for web-browseable archives - and unless I'm
misteaken, it'll also sanitize email addresses.

The only thing immediately "better" than a mailing list is a
newsgroup with an NNTP server that users can poll at intervals.
Authentication is possible.

The local Linux user group is running several lists that are
gatewayed into a leafnode2 server. It's been running "lights off"
for over a year. Only twice has it needed a kick up the UDP to make
it behave again (the admin is otherwise distracted and hasn't
installed a number of known fixes).

> email pros:
> 1)  new posts come to your inbox, or can be filtered to another box.

Indeed.

> email cons:
> 1)  surprisingly high bandwidth usage

That's largely due to excessive quoting/top-posting/HTML-encoded messages.

> 2)  archive/search engin isn't automatic.

Depends on the user; and the mailing list manager.

> forum pros:
> 1)  possibly lower bandwidth

Not usually. HTML-encapsulation increases text volume; typically by
a factor of 3.

> 2)  message context always available.  Don't have to depend on
> included replies or memory to know if the discussion started out
> about Ford or GM intakes, for example.

It's probably harder to tell in some forums about how a thread
started... the articles can span many pages.

> 3)  archive/searching built in.

Also more vulnerable to harvesting be spammers.

> 4)  sticky posts mean good information doesn't disappear into the
> archive abyss.

Although is takes some effort to construct and maintain FAQ's, the
product is much more worthwhile than a hundred or so individual
"sticky" articles.

> forum cons:
> 1)  overly cute dancing smiley faces
> 2)  chatty
> 3)  no digest mode (?)

Slow. Higher bandwidth required. Difficult to navigate.
Impossible to read offline.

> Note, I am not
> suggesting moving the lists to yahoo.

Good! The fine print at yahoo is onerous. If I put something on a
public mailing list, I don't intend for it to belong to yahoo.

-- 
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