Re: We need a forum!

[John Belmonte <john@...>]

Michael Cumming wrote:
> Well, we could debate the relative merits of one means of
> communicating versus another to no end.  The fact is that mail lists
> are in decline and the reasons are obvious.  The replies are on the
> list are not sample of the real world as the list has pre-selected it
> self to those who are still willing to use this method to
> communicate.  As suggested, maybe some of the people here like that.

Michael, please consider that this is a list for technical discussion by 
software developers.  Although I don't believe it myself, it may very 
well be true that web forums are increasing at a faster rate than plain 
lists.  This may simply reflect that non-technical discussions are on 
the rise.  I would argue that within technical communities, the use of 
mailing list is certainly not declining.

The needs of these two types of users is different.  I acknowledge the 
ease of use of web forums for non-technical people.  But technical 
people tend to need to follow a great many discussions (as I said, I'm 
on 25 mailing lists myself).  Even with an RSS aggregator, if I had to 
hop around to 25 different web sites to read messages, and perhaps learn 
several different navigation interfaces, I'd be pulling my hair out.

Regards,
-John

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