Re: We need a forum!

[Daniel Silverstone <dsilvers@...>]

Michael Cumming wrote:
> Your email address are not in full view.

Your email address is public knowledge anyway

> No cut and paste for subjects, just click reply.

So, like when I clicked reply to your mail in my mail client?

> PM for directly speaking with other users.

So email direct to a person?

> No back and forth through a 200 line text email trying to follow the topic your are interested.

Sensibly formatted emails don't have that issue.

> Subject areas that can be subscriped to so you get every message without even having to check.

Implicit in mailing lists

> Very easy to search, no thread disconnect because of a spelling/cut/paste error in the subject line.

No disconnect on mailing lists if people learned how to use their mail clients 
properly.

> When you come back to the forum and logon you can simply click view all new posts since last visit. 

Like when I load my mail client and it says "five new mails in Lists.Lua"

> File attachments.

Again, this can be done on mailing lists but is frowned upon. Much better to 
put the file on a website and post a URL

> Message formating which makes including code much easier and more readable.

Erm, how is plain text not the easiest format?

> No maintenance like a wiki.

Wrong... No maintainance for the users, huge headaches for the owners if they 
want it to run cleanly all the time.

> You can reference valuable threads with an url making it easy to point others in the right direction.

This is possible with a mailing list archive.

> I have seen other lists debate this, and once the forum came along, the naysayers were no longer naysaying.  

I find this incredible, but I won't say it's untrue since clearly you know 
things I don't about the situations.

> But, the real decision must come the Lua team - to whom I am very greatful for putting together such a great language and community.  I was more wondering if the decision to not do a forum was a cost/technical reason and not what format is superior (that's obvious!)....

While I agree that the decision should probably come from the Lua team, I 
dispute 110% that the 'Forum format' is superior. If I can't interact with it 
entirely from my email client, I'm stuffed. Will a forum allow me to make a 
statement PGP signed should I want to? Will a forum permit me to CC postings 
made to it to someone not on the forum?

There are many many arguments you can make; both for and against forums. 
However it is my firm belief that web-forums are the domain of the "LoL"er the 
"Me Too"er and the "u r teh c00l"ers. The Lua mailing list has remaining 
blissfully free of these kinds of people and I don't want to risk encouraging 
them.

If it is possible -- find a forum which can be subscribed to the mailing list 
and can act as a gateway between the mailing list and a web-forum. It's quite 
plausible to gateway the list onto a news server; and there exist plenty of 
web-based news interfaces... Would that not be a better idea?

Regards,

Daniel