[Asterisk-Users] Closing the "Google newsgroup or Forum setup" debate?

[Paul Crick]

It's interesting.. cos I'm a big proponent of message forum/bulletin board
type systems, it's great to see the interaction amongst people etc. And
Costas has some very valid arguments for why/how they provide value. I came
in to this thread early on with a "Hmm, yeah, I like forum systems too"
mentality but I have to admit that's changed now.

I know a bunch of forums that are out there, yet visit infrequently. My
email though, I read every day - who doesn't?! Throw in a few filters and I
get everything nicely separated in to folders. Threading can be a pain,
especially when you mix read versus unread messages and stuff, but I'll put
that more down to Outlook (and maybe my ineptitude at using it?) than
anything else.

Someone mentioned www.gmane.org - I had a quick look. This seems to be sexy
and gives you the best of both worlds. Web acccess if you want it, threaded
"a la usenet" discussions using regular newsreading software, and all
fronting a traditional mailing list style of operation.

The biggest argument for mail list and/or usenet style discussion is that
offline reading is possible, something that definitely doesn't work for web
based forums. Although I've never done it offline, the argument wins me over
as I realise the value of it.

SO.. We all have different preferences, the mailing list stays as a mailing
list, maybe more people will check out gmane.org who were previously unaware
(I'm one of them), and maybe someone will go out and write a mailing list to
phpBB gateway? ;-) I'd rather people worked on documentation and bugs for
Asterisk though...

Any other final comments, or can we get back on track with core Asterisk
stuff? :-)

Cheers
Paul