[Asterisk-Users] Google newsgroup or Forum setup.

[Ryan Tucker]

On Sun, 28 Sep 2003, costas  wrote:
> I think back in the startup days mailing lists did the job but, given the advances that have been made to bbs software it would beehove using them.
>
> Here is some issues with emails that bbs software solve.
[...]

I will counter with problems that web-based forums have:

1) A connection to the Internet is required.  Oftentimes, especially with
dialup situations and while travelling, it's difficult to be online enough
to read web-based forums.  A good, high-traffic list like asterisk-users
is great for long flights or immigration queues.

2) You need web browser software.  While not that big of a problem these
days, it still means firing up Opera and using that.  One could use Lynx,
I suppose.

3) Those f***ing smileys.

4) Limited search/archival options.  With this list, there's a couple
different sets of archives out there, which get indexed regularly by
Google.  As long as people use accurate Subject: lines and proper
threading protocol, all goes quite well.

5) Sloooooow.  When you're dealing with hundreds of messages per day,
having to wait a couple of seconds for the next message to come up is
unacceptable.

I could perhaps go for the Usenet method of doing things.  In fact, an
ideal solution would be an e-mail to Usenet gateway.  To keep spam down,
it could be one way -- to post, you'd e-mail in the response instead of
posting it to the newsgroup.  In addition to sending the message to all
who want the e-mail, it'd go out NNTP-style and end up on Google Groups,
for the web interfaceness.

DISCLAIMER:  I've tried following web-based forums, but in general, I've
found myself unable to do so.  As such, I lean very heavily against moving
mailing lists to web-based forums.  I also usually use e-mail software
which is quite good at handling busy mailing lists, so I've grown lazy.
:-)  -rt