[NCLUG] Mailing list or forum?

[Bob Proulx]

Paul Wehr wrote:
> Question of choice.

Choice is good.  Except for those people who choose poorly.  (chuckle)

> I'm in the process of setting some forum software phpBB 
> <http://www.phpbb.com/> on my home server box to see how/if I can get 
> it to work. I know that <http://www.linuxquestions.org> uses it and 
> it seems to support many options.

Sounds like a good project.  I am sure you will learn a lot by doing it.

> On the other hand, NCLUG uses a mailing list.

Yes.  While GNU is not UNIX a traditional UNIX model is that mail is a
great communication format for many things.  Mail for one.  But News
uses the format too.  UUCP before that.  So mailing lists are just a
natural way to operate for UNIX aficionados.

> I subscribe to information in both formats. I would guess that both 
> have their adherents and detractors.

I personally don't like forums.  I have to *really* have a need for
something before I will use a forum site.

 * You have to be online to actually read or participate.  But I often
   operate offline on my laptop and only sync up when I have a network
   connection available.

 * The data is presented in a rigid format that I don't prefer.  While
   others may like the graphical web browser as an operating system
   all by itself I don't.

 * I can search my own mailboxes in a number of ways that is very fast
   and natural to me.

 * Because I have the data it can't be unavailable because some site
   on the Internet is offline.

 * I can use my own choice of mail weapons (mutt!) and it is
   consistent for all of my mail.  Each type of forum software and
   site has its own unique ways of operating and unique quirks to
   learn.

 * It is slower to post messages to forums.  This tends to rate limit
   the postings to a forum.

 * Forums can be censored after the fact by the site operator.
   Mailing lists are truly free in that once delivered it cannot be
   undelivered.

I know that a lot of newbies like forums.  It is a complete no-brainer
to operate the web interface.  So literally anyone can post whatever
they feel like to a forum.  Which means I usually only see noise
there.

The actual action of registering, and posting with the web interface,
is somewhat laborious.  Trying to format a response to a posting in
any reasonable way (such as this reply for example) is much harder
than it is with a mailing list and a real editor.  This seems to rate
limit the ability of people to post and has the effect of throttling
down the sheer bulk of characters that one can see there.  This I
imagine appeals to newbies too because they will not be overwhelmed by
a high volume mailing list.

For the forum crowd sites such as the gmane.org site effectively turn
a mailing list into a web based news group.

> Can anyone think of any reasons why I might avoid forum software such as 
> phpBB?

There are really two questions there.

  "Can anyone think of any reasons why I might avoid forum software[?]"

Yes.  I avoid using forum software because I don't like forums.  :-)

  "Can anyone think of any reasons why I might avoid (forum) software
  such as phpBB?"

No.  I will guess that phpBB is probably as good as any other forum
software.

Bob