[Coco] Mailing lists vs web forums (was: OS-9 Book)

[Gene Heskett]

On Tuesday 29 June 2010, Steven Hirsch wrote:
>On Tue, 29 Jun 2010, Aaron Wolfe wrote:
>> To me, a mailing list is vastly superior to a web forum.  Instead of
>> visiting a dozen or so web pages just to know what is going on, I
>> simply open my email.  I could organize messages in any fashion that
>> I'd like with simple inbox rules (I don't, never saw much point in
>> organizing my inbox :).  I can forward a message to someone not on the
>> list directly from my email client, I can reply directly to someone
>> rather than publicly just as easily, I use whatever editor I like to
>> compose my messages, I can search years of content that spans several
>> projects *and* my direct correspondence in one place, etc.
>>
>> If you are involved in many projects, mailing lists are the only way to
>> go.
>
>Heh.  We are experiencing similar tensions with regards to internal forums
>at the company I work for.  The executives want everyone to leap into Web
>based forums so they can pull the plug on the nntp servers and save...
>pennies.
>
>The engineering community is pushing back hard.  Most of us made it clear
>we would simply stop monitoring and posting to any of the groups unless
>they were available on nntp.
>
>Personally?  I think the web-based forums are a tool of the devil.
>
>Steve
>
Your engineering folks should push back even harder, and setup your own mail 
server.  We did exactly that at wdtv , using qmail, back in 1998, never 
looked back.  Then the expense is for the server box, its electrical draw, 
and the domain registration.

Why?  Simple really, nntp is slowly going away because most ISP's cannot 
afford the size of a boxes storage to keep 1 days nntp traffic on hand, and 
the last time I saw some figures, nntp was 95% of the bandwidth they had to 
pay for to get to the backbone.  Web traffic and email was the other 5%.



-- 
Cheers, Gene
"There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty:
 soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order."
-Ed Howdershelt (Author)
To be a kind of moral Unix, he touched the hem of Nature's shift.
		-- Shelley