Neil wrote:
On Feb 18, 2008 7:41 PM, Per Jessen
wrote: [snip] 1. They are essentially an inferior and utterly superfluous re-invention of existing internet communication means - newsgroups aka usenet. They may be inferior in some cases, but they are webbased so they need no separate software. I can read forums at school, in a internet cafe when on holiday, no problem.This is not the case with usenet.
Hi Neil like jdd, I was hoping to avoid this debate. It's only flogging a dead horse. My list of reasons is/was intended as a statement, they're not really open to debate. Nevertheless - Webbased forums need software too - it's called a webbrowser. Usenet is as accessible as a website, both provided you've got the right software.
2. They're web-based - the interface changes just about every time you change forum. Add to that the entirely superfluous graphics and icons and what have you, and they become slow and unwieldy. The layout is a result of the admin's choices, true. But if the choices are good the result will be good. There are even phpbb's who let the user pick the css (drop down menu) and (if the css is build to the full posibilties) therefore the full layout.
Let me know how you propose to _guarantee_ that the interface does _not_ change when I change forum.
3. Following multiple separate forums can't be done on one screen. true, but does that matter? You can simply open 2 browser windows and place them neatly next to each other on 1 screen. In fact I even filter my mails so different mailing lists have their own folder and are placed there automatically.
I suspect you're probably young, and perhaps even a little inexperienced. Nothing wrong with that, so am I :-) I track/follow maybe 40 or 50 mailing-lists. Not every day and not equally, but I probably check in on maybe 20-25 public lists every day. All I need to do is switch to knode, and do a "Get all new articles", then I know which groups have updates and which don't. All on ONE screen, not 25. Here's a screenshot from my knode: http://jessen.ch/files/knode-screenshot2.jpeg (49 mailing lists)
4. There is no proper threading in forums and selective quoting is at best cumbersome. No proper threading? What kind of forum are you thinking? I do not know any forums which don't. A message is posted in a reply to a message so it's displayed directly beneath it.
Which is not proper threading. You may be showing your inexperience a little here. See the screenshot above for an example of threading.
5. They usually require that you login. Downright silly. Don't you log in to check your mail? Most forums are readable without logging in, just sending to it is not allowed.
Nope. I login to my workstation, the rest goes by itself. And I can read/post/whaetever after that.
Do you have more reasons? As always: I can still be convinced if you'd like.
Not really - like I said, those 5 reasons are from an article I wrote two years ago. They haven't changed.
One reason for forum instead of usenet: Linux must try to access the main public. The main public does know how to work forums, the do not know how to work usenet. The usenet history would have to be stored and made available by Google search.
I have absolutely no problem with the webforum as an _interface_ only. Make the core engine a news server with gated webfora and mailinglists, and I'll be perfectly happy. However, right now, most if not all webfora believe they are alone in the universe, and behave as such. /Per Jessen, Zürich -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org