On Oct 10, 2011, at 4:27 PM, Ken Gunderson wrote: > On Mon, 2011-10-10 at 13:12 -0400, Richard L. Hamilton wrote: >> On Oct 10, 2011, at 3:22 AM, Kees Nuyt wrote: >> >>> On Sun, 9 Oct 2011 02:51:13 -0400, Richard wrote: >>> >>>> >>>> On Oct 8, 2011, at 9:49 PM, Josef 'Jeff' Sipek wrote: >>>> >>>>> On Sat, Oct 08, 2011 at 06:35:57PM -0600, LinuxBSDos.com wrote: >>> [snip] >>>> >>>> I must be old-fashioned, but I find an NNTP server >>>> easier than forums (and less junk accumulating on >>>> my mail server). Seamonkey has an adequate reader, >>>> although I prefer knews. Those have nice threading, >>>> killfiles, etc. And they're usually _much_ faster >>>> and less problems than a web forum. >>> >>> +1 >>> >>> A mailing list is fine too, and the mailing list archives will >>> take care of it being searchable. >>> I don't mind if the lists are bridged to a webforum. >>> >>>> A server that does not exchange info with other NNTP >>>> servers, and requires a login to post, seems like it >>>> would work well enough. >>> >>> Sounds like subscription, that's what mailing lists are for ;) >> >> But news readers have tools that are better suited to following >> conversations of interest (or excluding those not of interest) in very large >> volumes. Mail can be overwhelming at a few hundred a day, but one can keep >> up with Usenet on the level of thousands of posts a day (if one uses the >> tools to be selective, and reads fast). >> >> NNTP and SMTP are really quite similar, except news is always retrieved from >> one or potentially a network of servers, while SMTP may be either delivered >> or retrieved as the last step. Both can handle attachments, and both can >> have clients that are might lighter weight than web browsers (and servers >> much less prone to problems than some used with web forums). Light and fast >> are helpful when trying to keep up with a large volume. >> >> One can of course continue to use mailing lists, but to set them up in such >> a way that they can be made available to NNTP clients via gmane, or >> something similar. There's usually a lot less trouble bridging mail and >> news than mail and web forums, I should think; yet news (in its readers, and >> in the basic search functions of the server) offers some forum-like >> functionality that mail does not. >> >> Readers shouldn't be a problem; everyone should probably have or be able to >> get Seamonkey, or for those unfortunates not able to separate themselves >> from Windows, Outlook Express (which IIRC has a news reading capability). >> Not that those are the only choices, by any means. >> >> The one advantage I can see with a web forum is if there were a lot of large >> attachments anticipated. On a web forum, they wouldn't have to be subjected >> to a bandwidth-hungry encoding to pass over mail. People have of course >> passed around large attachments with news, but it's ugly, unless one has a >> reader that's specifically meant to put that back together again. > > +1 > > However, pondering for even a little bit as to why I no longer use NNTP > that much I conclude that it is "pull like" enough such that web based > forums have taken over catering to the "pull niche", while SMTP has > remained steadfast for those preferring "push" approaches.
If one has a deadline or timeline on a collective activity, "push" keeps people engaged. Otherwise, doesn't "pull" let them manage their own time better? _______________________________________________ OpenIndiana-discuss mailing list [email protected] http://openindiana.org/mailman/listinfo/openindiana-discuss
