[Coco] A return to bit.listserv.coco?

[Robert Sherwood]

At 12:47 PM 3/21/05, you wrote:

>On Mar 21, 2005, at 11:40 AM, billg wrote:
>
>>As a newbie on this mailing list, my opinion probably doesn't carry much
>>weight, but IMHO this is the best place for discussion of CoCo matters.
>>Membership suggests interest in the CoCo neighborhood, whereas
>>bit.listserv.coco IS open for the general public.  Case in point: all that
>>spam.
>
>But why create gateways and openings when we could just congregate in one 
>place?  If one thing fractures the CoCo community, it's "this group" and 
>"that mailing list."

Because...  moving to a newsgroup WOULD NOT be congregating in one 
place.  I for one, do not have a reader installed on my computer nor do I 
have any desire to try and hunt down a decent one, much less muck around in 
the cesspool that is newsgroups.  I know Outlook Express can read 
newsgroups, but I do not even have that installed.

>As I suspected, I'm swimming against the tide here.  What surprises me is 
>that no one has seen the validity in the ideas I've expressed, which I 
>think are quite sensible.
>
>Boisy

There are no specific advantages in the newsgroup that are not also 
available in this list.  In fact, I think searching is even easier in this 
list - search the list and you get results from only the list and not every 
post in existence which happens to have the letters "coco" in them.

People understand mailing lists.  One just needs to glance at Yahoo Groups 
to see that.  The large number of new members we have seen in just the last 
few months also indicates that we are not nearly as "hidden" as you suggest.

It takes just a few seconds to subscribe.  How is that inconvenient?  I 
think being able to keep spammers out and quickly expelling the rare 
troublemaker who sneaks in renders the "inconvenience" of confirming a 
subscription extremely minor at most.  Besides, the only person who can 
truly claim inconvenience is Dennis, and he does not seem to mind at all.

As an aside, could somebody enlighten me as to what the deal about a gmail 
invite is and how it differs from just signing up?  (Hmmm... since gmail is 
run by Google, does that mean all those emails are publicly searchable?  ;) )

--Rob