OpenEuphoria

Re: Change list to forum style

• Posted by Christian.CUVIER at agriculture.gouv.fr Aug 12, 2003
• 425 views

> From: Chris Burch <chrisburch at uku.co.uk>
> Subject: Change list to forum style
> 
> 

> Hi
> 
> I've just written this in the topica web entry, wouldn't take it, so I'm 
> doing it again. Sorry, but another reason for changing.
> 
> While I am sure that Topica's mail list has done an excellent job, I feel it 
> would be a good time to move to a forum style of communication, eg
> 
> <A
> HREF="http://www.darkbasicpro.com/apollo/forums.php">http://www.darkbasicpro.com/apollo/forums.php</A>
> <A HREF="http://www.blitzbasic.com/">http://www.blitzbasic.com/</A>
> <A HREF="http://coderforums.com/">http://coderforums.com/</A>
> 
> There is an awful lot of stuff piped at me, and I have difficulty sorting the 
> stuff I'm interested in from the stuff I'm not. And there is an awful lot of 
> useful stuff!
> 
> The forum style would allow setting threads into subjects which you could 
> follow (eg announcements, linux, win32, database, general etc etc). Most
> forums
> allow mailing of threads to readers, and allow searching.
> 

	This is really a mixed blessing IMHO. A lot of messages, even though 
they fall into a given thread by just looking at the Re: field, actually 
might usefully appear in several threads. When a forum is really active, 
it becomes too diifficult to dig out new stuff, and you may lose 
invaluable info just because you're reading selected threads in order 
not to get overwhelmed by all the messages.
	I don't know if the following exists, in which case it may be a welcome 
change from Topica: messages get classified not, or not only, by thread, 
but by keywords. And a given message might appeaar several times if 
several keywords appear in it. Those kwds could come from a predefined 
list, with the sender having the option to specify an extra, or 
alternate, set of keywords his/her message is related to.
	Otherwise, I'm not sure a forum-style channel would be much better than 
the current situatiion. The only thing I currrently complain about 
Topica is that if sometimes badly mangles the digests, and doesn't 
answer when I report this, complete with the issues # affected.

CChris
..

> There are probably many reasons why the format hasn't changed, but please 
> don't let it be for a (in a yorkshire accent) "We don't like change do we 
> Diedre?" attitude.
> 
> I realise this would require a change at the top, so how about it Rob?
> 
> Chris
> 
> 
> -