Heather: It's time for a Forum. (And an answer!)

[Jeffrey Reynolds]

I for one think the list works just fine. I use rev a fair amount and 
find it useful as is, newbie questions, flame wars, and all. the digest 
mode allows a quick scan of stuff and tracking threads I am interested 
in is no real problem for me at least. I understand the benefits of 
forums, but for my use of rev this list (and the metacard list before 
that) has done me fine going on probably 9 years now. I actually pickup 
part way into threads when scanning the digest list that i would not 
see in the forum mode. As Richard pointed out the forum interfaces for 
the current list posts looks to work well if you want a forum front end 
on it. Newbies, focused, or casual could always approach the list from 
one of these interfaces to see only responses to their threads.

sorry to be the curmudgeon, but prefer keeping things the same for now, 
i dont think its really broken, so dont go trying to fix it...

Also have to add in light of the flame wars of late that metacard/rev 
has been the best supported product by both the companies that have 
owned/distributed it and by the list group here. I realize this support 
level has set expectations high for rev, and I think we tend to get a 
bit spoiled sometimes and try to push the bar a bit too high for them. 
compare rev support with most of the big and little software 
vendors/products out there and you will see. go have a problem with an 
adobe or macromedia product, have fun... I think we need to step back a 
second hear and take a deep breath and see whats reasonable and easy to 
do since disrupting this list which, IMHO, works very well for now. I 
think the recent events have just gotten folks a bit riled and not 
really been a systemic problem that needs a fixin'. Yes things can 
always be better, but at some point the effort goes up exponentially to 
make improvements and the risk of mucking up things that were working 
fine at an acceptable level goes way up.

one final comment on the flame wars of recent, i have seen this happen 
on a number of different lists in the last year. I have been using 
lists for like 25 years now since grad school when we were doing them 
on darpa net accounts and flame wars have always erupted. But in the 
last year its been much more unruly on a number of different lists 
(from professional to hobby) that i have been on for a long while. I'm 
not quite sure what is causing this behavior all of a sudden. I hope it 
is not a shift in society going online and not behaving as they would 
if you were talking face to face. On some lists i have seen folks say 
things or in ways or with words that would cause an instant poke in the 
nose by many people if said to their faces.

any how, finally just had to put my 1.5 cents into the bowl...

cheers,

jeff reynolds

On Dec 15, 2005, at 11:52 AM, use-revolution-request at lists.runrev.com 
wrote:

> I say, persuade RunRev to do it. That is where the forum belongs. They
> obviously have the web space to do this. I've asked the list manager
> (Heather) directly about it and I have not received an answer. I don't 
> know
> why they choose not to respond on this. We've had dozens of posters 
> beg for
> a true web-based forum. The request will not "go away" if ignored.
>
> Benefits of a Rev-run, web-based forum:
>
> 1) Ability to categorize posts into boards (IDE, TranScript, Graphics,
> Databases, Mac/Win/Linux, Suggestions, etc.)
>
> 2) Ability for well-organized threads (threads are continually "split" 
> in
> the mailing list)
>
> 3) Easier moderation. (Individual posts can be edited/deleted before 
> they
> are sent out to all members)
>
> 4) Ability to skip boards/topics you are not interested in
>
> 5) No loss of functionality. (Most boards, including phpBB, offer 
> two-way
> email support)
>
> 6) Ability to provide user profiles, avatars and links to homepages
> (obviating the need for long signatures)
>
> 7) Preventing "splintering" of the list by multiple "renegade" forums.
>
> 8) Additional functionality (screen shots, for example)
>
> 9) Existing web-based interfaces to the list are not as nice and do not
> offer the benefits above.
>
> 10) Easier for newcomers. (Every month there is someone who doesn't 
> know how
> to use this mailing list and mis-posts)