Re: TECH: Why this low-tech forum?

On May/03/2004, Gary Shannon wrote:

> Personally, I'd be much more comfortable if this
> mailing list were impressed on clay tablets, baked,
> and delivered quarterly by ox cart.
	Interesting. But I think it would be a problem to archive ;-)

> On the other hand, BBS forums have the huge advantage
> of being able to segregate everything into specific
> categories and topics.  In truth, as I'm sure I said
> once several years ago, I'd MUCH rather this were a
> BBS forum than this stone-age mailing list format.
	Well, topics are a good idea, but the problem is that no one
forces you to use them :-) So, you end with messages totally unrelated
in any of the forum sections. It's not a solution.

	If that's what you miss in this list, try Usenet. There you have
topics, a whole lot of them. Or a "traditional" BBS, a la Fidonet (much
saner than Usenet, sometimes). Web forums are just the last iteration of
something that has been implemented a lot of times using different
technologies. I've tried quite a lot of them, and having a specialized
program (like a mail program, an Usenet browser or GoldEd for Fidonet)
is *way* better than any web forum. A web browser doesn't cut it
compared to a specialized program.

	All of this always IMHO, of course :-) If you don't think like
that, my opinion is that you read too few messages on web forums, have
too much time, or use a bad mail program :-)

> But alas, there are always those who, like Mark Twain,
> are in favor of progress but uncomfortable with
> change.
	And those that only know one thing and think that's the best one
because it's the one they use ;-)

--
          Roberto Suarez Soto