[SpamCop-Mail] Re: This newsgroup is going away

[Marjolein Katsma]

 (""AlphaCentauri <anonymous\"@anonymous.com>") wrote in
 news:bus9um$88s$1 at news.spamcop.net:

> In a web based forum, no one gets annoyed by top posting because no
> one has to quote the previous message at all.  In fact, not-quoting is
> the default.  So you don't have to scroll through a lot of repetition.

And in a non-threaded web forum (as you're stuck with now, it seems), 
without quoting you'll often have no clue who is answering which post by 
whom. With proper threading (a basic property in NNTP but possible with 
the better forum software) that guessing game is not necessary.

Sensible quoting and snipping though will help all readers, including 
those who come in for teh first time or who drop by only occasionally.

> In a web based forum, the list of topics is as large as my screen, not
> as large as my screen minus my message window.  I can see more at one 
> time and scan through more quickly.

Try some of the configuration options of your newsreader.

> In a web based forum, I don't have to open every message in a thread
> to read it; I can just quickly scroll through and scan the messages.
> So I am not spending a lot of time opening every message that just
> says "ROFL." 

With a news reader I can open all threads at once, or I can keep reading
by just hitting the space key. No need to scroll that way, either. 

> In a web based forum, threads are posted in order of the most recent 
> posting, not the date of the origin of the thread.  I have noticed
> that threads more than a couple days old -- obscured behind dozens of 
> intervening posts -- are usually ignored even if still of interest,
> and then new threads start on the same topic with a lot of repetitive
> posting. 

With a news reader I can sort on anything I want, ascending or
descending: subject, lines, form, date, score... (and you cannot score
posts in a web forum) 

> I have no trouble knowing what threads I need to read on a web-based 
> forum, because I can get emails each time the thread I'm watching gets
> a new post, and there are coded icons next to each thread to tell me
> whether there have been new posts since my last visit. 

And my news reader shows me what's new each time I go to a NG, no need
to clutter up my mail box as well. And I have all sorts of filter 
options, such as showing me only unread message, or only threads with 
new messages, that would make this even more efficient.

(I'll concede that email notifications can be handy in some cases but I 
don't need them here. In fact, I've only ever used them on web-only 
forums - but never with groups that have NNTP as well as web interfaces. 
As long as I can use NNTP I don't seem to need email notification as 
much as I do with a web forum.)

> In a web based forum, if you want to comment on a topic that was
> discussed before, you can "resurrect it" by just adding a post, which
> moves it to the top of the forum.  In this list, you just have to
> start over and maybe tell people to go look in the archives. 

And you can do *exactly* that with a NG and a newsreader - just choose 
the appropriate filter and sort order.

> I guess some of you have no need to use a browser and just use your 
> email all day, but since I have mozilla they are the same thing for
> me. 

While I do use email all day, I do NOT use it for anything that has an 
NTTP interface: a newsreader is much more efficient while allowing me to 
keep and archive messages at the same time (still properly threaded) - 
something you cannot easily do with a web-based forum.

> And I have DSL, so I'm connected all day anyway; I guess it would be
> different if I were dialing up every so often to collect my email. 

More to the point, a newsgroup is more efficient for people on dial-up 
than a mail list: you need to download and read only those threads 
you're interested in. And web pages have a load of overhead in markup 
that newsgroups don't have.

> It also seems to me that when I go to this type of forum, since old
> threads are not easily found by newbies, it is not an easy social
> group to break into.  There tend to be a lot of long-time participants
> who know each other well, and not many people participating
> regularly-but-less-often. 

While there are people around here who have been around since before 
SpamCop had newsgroups, I see new people coming in and become part of 
the "social" group all the time - and others dropping out.

I have also seen web forums that were a lot more "closed" and less 
welcoming to newcomers. I think it has more to do with the subject and - 
as you see here - sharing a common goal than with the interface used to 
conduct the discussions.


-- 
Marjolein Katsma - Amsterdam, NL - http://hshelp.com/
Spammers steal resources: they're my enemy.
Cyveillance steals resources and they lie: they're my enemy.
The enemy of my enemy can be my enemy, too.
http://www.xs4all.nl/~iamback/evidence/cyveillance/cookies.html