Re: Forums

* Matthew Wilcox wrote:
>I am having a horrible time trying to get the system to work properly
>with my Gmail account, it keeps resetting itself to send replies from
>my main address which the www-style list doesn't recognise (and so
>doesn't post). Everything is a PITA to find and follow, if you're not
>already involved in a thread it's impossible to look further back in
>time than when you joined. I don't even know why the list is using my
>gmail address because I signed up with my primary address (which Gmail
>also sends with some magic via functionality).

Internet text messages are really just Internet text messages, how they
are distributed and what user interface people use to interact with the
message is pretty much by design up to the users and network operators.

>A mailing list seems archaic and (to my mind) a badly implemented
>communication medium for what we're doing. Forums are designed
>expressly for what we're doing here on the list, having numerous
>advantages and being far more useful. I don't get why we're still
>using mail lists. Entropy?

They are certainly badly implemented compared to distributing Internet
text messages through Netnews systems, which solve problems with respect
to discovery, subscriptions, account management, access to archives,
auto-responders, synchronization across devices, and many more you have
with typical mailing lists. You can in fact access this list through a
Netnews gateway which also happens to have various web interfaces,

  http://blog.gmane.org/gmane.comp.web.css.general
  http://news.gmane.org/gmane.comp.web.css.general

I assume that solves your problem? If you don't like these particular
forum-like web interfaces, well, that is why Internet text messages are
really just Internet text messages, a standard message format where you
can build user interfaces around that you do like. With forums you can't
do that typically, as they lack the standard format and access protocol;
you have to suffer whatever crude interface the forum host came up with,
multiplied by the number of organizations where you are interested in a
discussion forum.
-- 
Björn Höhrmann · mailto:bjoern@hoehrmann.de · http://bjoern.hoehrmann.de
Am Badedeich 7 · Telefon: +49(0)160/4415681 · http://www.bjoernsworld.de
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Received on Thursday, 5 January 2012 20:41:50 UTC