Why isn't Rev more popular? [Mailing List]

[Robert Brenstein]

>- I made my post completely oblivious that Kevin Miller had weighed 
>in, because I received the digest with his post *after* I made mine. 
>This is not "real-time."

The way email works, I get many posts in different order than they 
were sent. This does not happen with forums to the same degree but 
still multiple people can be composing answers at the same time not 
being aware that somebody else is answering, so there is some 
crosstalk as well. I don't see it as a big deal.

Digests for a high-volume list like this are sort of pointless except 
for people who really want to just scan them. I think the filtering 
is a better way to do it.

>- If you look at the list archive, you see that this thread (and 
>most others) are broken up into dozens of pieces so that it's quite 
>hard to follow who is responding to what.

Threading is indeed an issue for emails. However, that feature can 
also be a minus for online forums in a different way: the forum 
discussions are usually divided into content areas, topics, sometimes 
with multiple levels of hierarchy, so people need to subscribe to 
each individually (to get emails) or need to move around the 
different forums a lot. There is also often more repeatition of 
different things in different areas. Some active areas fill up with 
new threads so quickly that one has to page to see older but still 
new threads. Then, people also often hijack the thread to go into a 
different direction (or start a new thread to continue), so the title 
of main entry (seen normally on forum listings) is not always 
representative. In the end, an average user does not necessarily see 
more of content than in eail subscription. I even dare say less 
overall.

>- On days when there is high traffic, you get a *lot* of email. This 
>has resulted in me filtering the Use-Revolution list into a folder, 
>which results in reading it less often.

I do not see that visiting you folder to process the accumulated 
emails is that different from visiting forums and browsing around.

>I thought the question was a valid one and I gave my honest opinion.

The bottom line: I see this issue more of personal preference and/or 
individual workflow issue than one format having advantage over the 
other. Each has pros and cons.

That said, if Rev could have a system like Tidbits-Talk 
(http://www.tidbits.com/about/tidbits-talk.html), they could probably 
make a lot more people happy. That system is based on WebCrossing 
(with custom extensions) and allows users to participare in either 
forum and/or email modes. So each users picks what suits them best. 
Unfortunately, WebCrossing ain't free or cheap and it is not 
problem-free either.

Robert