On Monday 24 April 2006 04:50 am, Tom Spear (Dustin Booker, Dustin
Navea) wrote:> n0dalus wrote:
> > In a way this holds for mailing lists as well, but I think
> > the difference is that forums usually have:
> > - Large sections containing non-technical discussion
> > - 'Post counts', often used as a measure of status
> > - Signup date, also used as status symbol
> > - A visible power structure, being able to see which posters
> > are moderators/admins. In a mailing list people tend to treat
> > each other more as peers.
> > - Graphical avatars and signatures
> > - "See who else is online" features
> >
> > Without those things, such as if you implemented a simple web
> > interface on top of the mailing list, I don't think there
> > would be as many cliques.
> >
> > n0dalus.
>
> Apparently I like the clique-ish-ness (try saying that 5 times
> fast ;-) because I like every last one of those features..
I think this is true for the folks who like forums. These things
are, as far as I can tell, the only things people on mailing
lists can't get or do (with the exception of creating large
sections for non-technical or off-topic discussions). All the
other "advantages" of forums discussed here are easily
implemented by any mailing list subscriber who cares to implement
them through their e-mail client, through webmail, and through
using Google or Yahoo!'s specific-site search features.
The one exception I note -- the large sections of non-technical
discussion -- on every mailing list I've subscribed to, when
there was a lot of interest in "off topic" discussions, a new
mailing list was created for just that purpose. So having
non-technical discussions is no problem with mailing lists
either.
deedee
--
Registered Linux User #327485
