[GZG] [LST] Mail list vs. Forums

AFTER properly cleaning up the subject/topic, of course.

Sorry, meant orginally to post to soda...

By the way, I seem to be having trouble with my sign on to the forum; don't
think I got an email reply-to-confirm.

The_Beast

> By the way, I seem to be having trouble with my sign on to the forum;

I'm looking into that. It's an odd issue since the base program and the signup
has been tested in the past. It might be one of the many email bounces that
I'm receiving in my inbox right now (you get that when you run a lot of
forums)

As a reply to the Forum vs List debate.

Yearts ago I was quite the active member on this list, and at one point I was
on SOOO many lists (almost 3 dozen) (by product of a volunteer position I took
on) that I had to stop receiving this one just to cut down the traffic. Now it
was a big loos since I couldn't keep up with the community.

What would have saved me was having all the major discussion lists I was on as
forums. Being someone who is considered an "old timer" when it comes to the
Internet I still prefer forums for things like this list. It's far more
concise, easy to use, organised, searchable, and moderatable. It's more
accessable for the new person to join and browse what has been discussed.

The major drawback being that it needs critical mass to operate. Email lists
can get by complete dry spells untill someone pops a mail out, but forums
needs to be active to survive. Once trafic drops below a threshold the
communitee stops going there.

Now something I have noticed in my rejuvinated interest in GZG games is that a
lot of my old links, and those on pages that are still up run by the community
are dead. It's quite a loss since I used some of those pages quite a bit for
reference. Like the FT Java shipbuilder app. Now I MAY
have a backup copy I d/l somewhere at home but it's something I miss.

The lists archives are also a pain to search through relative to a forum
which means I'm missing out on some new rule/constuction ideas. In a
forum you could even stiky the final versions of things like this.

Now I'm just rambling a bit. Email lists are a valuable tool, but in what the
list is here to do a forum does much better, though it does need the support
of the core community to get going.

_______________________________________________
Gzg-l mailing list
Gzg-l@lists.csua.berkeley.edu
http://lists.csua.berkeley.edu/mailman/listinfo/gzg-lMaybe out of line,
however...

Has anyone considered moving this to Yahoo or Google Groups?

Advantages:

  Can be e-mail or read on web pages.
Automatic Archiving. Excellent searching, especially with Google. Easier for a
new player to find.

Disadvantages, we would all need to switch.

I like lists.csua, but that's mostly because I have been involved with lists
on that server for many years.

Roger

> On 7/10/06, Jaime Tiampo <fugugaipan@spikyfishthing.com> wrote:
It's
> more accessable for the new person to join and browse what has been

> Can be e-mail or read on web pages.

I am pretty sure running the list itself is not the issue. Listserv software
is as old as can be and spam is a non issue. The FreeBSD general list gets
nearly 600 messages a day and not a single SPAM slips through. Somebody is not
moderating all these, it has to do with decent spam software on your list like
clamav or spamassassin.

As for yahoo or google, I am highly against that also. I get spammed more on
my google and yahoo mailing lists than I do on my non ones. Also to join I
believe you have to be a member which I def am not. Also the LARGER issue is
yahoo (and google assuming) can and will shutdown your list with no notice and
for no reason and has happened on three high volume lists I belong to.

I would agree this list is a PITA joining but I think that has more to do with
site design (lets face it, GZG could use a makeover) than
anything else.  There is a big join our mailing / discussion list nor
is it really broken down between SG, FT, etc etc.. basically just developer
(beta) and everybody else.

> On Mon, Jul 10, 2006 at 03:59:46PM -0700, Peter Thoenen wrote:

> As for yahoo or google, I am highly against that also. I get spammed

Whereas if Matthew were to lose access to csua for some reason, he'd still
have the subscriber list. If he got bored and went away, I'd have my copy.
Both our archives go back before the csua era...

The major problem with running a forum in parallel is that, if new people
predominantly use the forum rather than the list, that'll gradually become the
place where the "action" is, and the list will die.

(There is apparently forum software which allows access via SMTP or
NNTP, but it's _very_ unusual.)

My experience of lists and fora suggests that people who have something useful
to say are disproportionately represented among those who prefer
lists, so it's not just my self-interest saying that we should keep the
list going. :-)

R

> My experience of lists and fora suggests that people who have something

Yes, and yes again.

Switching to Yahoo or Google or whatever would, I think, see many of us gone.
Receiving this list in digest format is by far, for me anyway, the best way to
keep up with what is going on. I download a few emails, and I have the entire
day's traffic. As Oerjan said, I can read offline at my

leisure.

I'm biased - I don't like fora much, and think it would be sad to see
this (excellent) list go the way of a forum. As a supplementary tool, for
posting pictures and whatnot, perhaps. But not to replace the list.

Speaking as one who has suffered, I'd rather eat a leper's used boil dressings
than have anything to do with Yahoo Groups.

They're unreliable. Entire groups just disappear. UserIDs stop working for no
known reason. Files become unavailable, and sometimes become accessible again
weeks later without explanation.

Yahoo tech support is essentially non-existent. I have *never* even
once received a reply to any e-mail query or problem report. I'm told
that if you ring some secret phone number, and hold for some indeterminate
time, it is possible to get through, but that is hardly practical from
Australia.

Any groups that are not moderated get distasteful spam. Active, moderated
groups impose a considerable load on the moderator.

Just say no to Yahell!

_______________________________________________
Gzg-l mailing list
Gzg-l@lists.csua.berkeley.edu
http://lists.csua.berkeley.edu/mailman/listinfo/gzg-lI get google groups
as digests.  I get google groups as individual e-mails.
I have google groups which I only read in the forum. I have never heard of a
google group being shut down for volume, although I am not omniscient.

To be clear I have some google groups set-up so that there is no
perceivable difference between that and a list.

Gmail is good at filtering SPAM, if there isn't a tie-back to the groups
I would be surprised.

Roger

> On 7/10/06, Adrian <adrian@stargrunt.ca> wrote: