[WikiEN-l] Discussion forum - The WikBack

[Anthony]

On Jan 1, 2008 1:52 PM, Earle Martin <wikipedia at downlode.org> wrote:
> On 28/12/2007, Risker <risker.wp at gmail.com> wrote:
> > > A good idea, UC; forums are usually better at threaded  conversation and
> > it is much easier to correct things when folks go off-topic.
>
> A bad idea. Forums are manifestly inferior to email, which can be read
> from anywhere using a number of methods, instead of having to go to a
> site and use some hateful forum software. Not that I feel the need to
> post here often, but it offers more value than any forum can. I
> certainly won't be joining.
>
I think the biggest advantage of email lists is that I can access all
of them in one place.  I'm subscribed to about a dozen different
mailing lists which I can access all at once under the "mailing lists"
label in gmail.  So I get threads from Larry Sanger's SharedKnowing
mailing list (http://mail.citizendium.org/mailman/listinfo/sharedknowing)
mixed with threads from the Tor mailing list or-talk
(http://archives.seul.org/or/talk/) mixed with threads from the Tampa
linux user group (http://slug.archives.nks.net/List/) mixed with
threads from the OpenStreetMap mailing list, etc.  I can search all of
these from one location, no one can delete messages on them out from
under me, I find it very convenient.  If I want to read one of the
mailing lists individually I can do that too, but I pretty much never
do this.  I guess some people wouldn't like this, but for me it's
almost essential.

When Citizendium switched their mailing list to forums and made their
mailing list announce-only, my participation fell off dramatically.
I've recently tried setting up their forums to send me an email
whenever a new thread on the forums is started, but it isn't working
very well.  Gmail doesn't thread it properly, I have to mark each
thread I want to follow separately, I lose the messages between the
first and whenever I marked the thread.  It doesn't work.

In theory there should be a way to get the best of both worlds,
though.  Just let me set a flag on the forum to send me an email every
time a message is added, properly titled and referenced for any email
program which handles threading, and let me reply to the messages by
email (and pick up the references or whatever in the email header to
direct the message to the right spot in the forums).