The Cunctator wrote:
Hmm...when did I recommend that Wikipedia use a BBS?
How's that going, Jimbo?
It's being ignored for absolutely no good reason.
What BBS software are the Japanese using? Where is it hosted? Is it something that we could/should host for them, and also set up for English-speakers?
I love using email, and so that's one of the main reasons I haven't gotten off my butt to look into this. But that's not a very good reason.
It is a very good reason. The Japanese may do whatever the want, but I strongly advise against using a BBS for Wikipedia discussions.
1) Mailing lists are, by their very nature, decentralized. Any post is replicated on hundreds of machines. This automatic replication makes censorship very hard and a total loss of data unlikely.
2) Archives like the ones generated by Mailman can be imported into email clients and searched locally at high speed. I have frequently made use of that feature to build high quality archives. The search function of most BBS systems, on the other hand, is far from optimal (I've seen many BBS which claimed to have a search, but where this search never worked).
3) Mailing lists keep a track record. It is easy and fast to see all posts by a particular member, or everything written by yourself. With a BBS, you first have to figure out if such a feature exists, then wait for the server to perform some search. Server is down? Too bad, you'll never get that post you wrote 3 months ago now.
4) Mailing lists allow everyone to participate without a free online connection. In many developing nations, Internet access is paid by the minute, and reading and replying to posts online costs money. Mailing lists can be conveniently read, responded to and archived offline.
5) Mailing lists allow the use of a variety of email clients which all have advantages and disadvantages. Everyone can use the software of their choice, with a user interface that suits them, without being forced to make use of an arbitrary web interface. This is of importance to handicapped users, for whom special email clients exist.
6) Good email clients make quoting and threading transparent and easy to use. They interpret the reference ID in a message and thereby allow you to quickly navigate to the parent post that a message has responded to. Quoting and writing within a real text editor is also a lot more convenient than writing within a browser window.
7) Bulletin board systems are slow. This is related to 4) -- in a BBS I have to wait for each individual thread to load, for the "post reply" screen to load, for sorting options to affect my display etc. -- as with all web interfaces, you have a high additional latency as every aspect of the interface is generated "on demand".
8) Bulletin board systems have a higher noise level. They allow no easy client-side filtering, as many email clients do. Many BBS encourage the use of fonts, pictures, animated smileys, overlong signatures etc., often leading to very hard to read threads.
9) Every BBS is different. Everyone is familiar with email, but learning to use a BBS always requires making yourself familiar with its particular user interface and functionality.
10) Mailing lists can be easily moderated, even in groups. BBS usually have after-the-fact moderation, where individual posts are censored or threads are locked. On a mailing list, posts can be pre-approved and individual members banned. With a BBS that does not use some ID confirmation method, we'll have the same banning problem we have on Wikipedia proper -- totally open access is not always a good thing. And if email confirmation is required, this only advantage of a web-based BBS goes away.
A motivated and informed writer could certainly expand the above list to 10 times this length. Any of the advantages that people cite for bulletin boards -- such as easier participation -- can be easily replicated with mailing lists. For example, the Wikipedia mailing lists are available through the portal
and can be accessed with a newsreader or webbrowser. In other words: Not only can mailing lists be read with an email or webmail client, they can also be read with a newsreader or BBS-style interface! Now try reading a BBS with an email client or newsreader.
I will not participate in any BBS. Of all the forums that the Internet offers, bulletin boards are among the worst.
Regards,
Erik