Re: Forums

On 2012/01/05 18:55 (GMT) Matthew Wilcox composed:

> There is nothing that email is doing that a forum can not also do. Better.

Maybe they can at least in some way, but they don't. Like most of the web, 
most are rudely styled, usable only by applying defensive measures against 
things like tiny fonts, annoying advertising, stupidly long paragraph lines, 
and incentives to leave (clutter of offsite links).

I also think it would be unlikely if even possible for a forum to match the 
convenience of instant threading or not, or instant choice of message pane 
sort field, much less absence of HTML and all the overhead that goes with it.

Piling up email forces me to deal with it. Forums can't do that.

Forum searches are almost universally less efficient at finding than Googling 
the very same forum; some are completely worthless. At the same time, Google 
searches mean extra tabs and/or windows that discombobulate browser history 
and make the back button all but useless.

Forum content isn't guaranteed to last unedited or unrepurposed as long as I 
care for an archive to last. My email goes away only if and when I choose for 
that to happen.

Bad as Usenet is, I'd rather go there before any newly found forum.

I subscribe to upwards of 70 mailing lists. I frequent only about 4 forums, 
and am able to do so with those few only because either I take the trouble to 
create user CSS to fix the rudeness, or because they offer a needed resource 
available nowhere else.
-- 
"The wise are known for their understanding, and pleasant
words are persuasive." Proverbs 16:21 (New Living Translation)

  Team OS/2 ** Reg. Linux User #211409 ** a11y rocks!

Felix Miata  ***  http://fm.no-ip.com/

Received on Thursday, 5 January 2012 19:53:00 UTC