It's now been just over a year since I created the link between the Backup Central forums and this mailing list. When I first started it, people asked me to keep a close eye on it and then see how things went after a year. It's been a year, and here's what I have to report.
First, let me say THANK YOU to everyone on this list for supporting the idea, even if you thought it was crazy. Posts that were made from the forum were NOT given "pariah" status; they seemed to be given the same attention as posts made via the traditional way. Since implementing this back in January of 2007, 167 of the 4242 messages on this list were made by Backup Central members. While that's only 4% of the postings, I'd say that's significant. If you take a look at the posts (at http://www.backupcentral.com/phpBB2), you will see that there are a good mix of questions AND answers in those posts. Some very bright people have joined the discussion via the web interface, and I think that's a Good Thing(tm). The number one concern, SPAM, has been stopped. Without revealing the details of my method, I will say that it has been 100% effective since it was implemented in July. It requires some manual work on my part, but it keeps me connected to the list. I made a change in the code a while back to address another concern about anonymous postings. Since the forum has to post all messages using the same email address (although the person's Backup Central username is given as the "real name"), I put a blurb at the end of the post that shows the user's real email address, and also gives an email address to forward any spam to. That seems to have assuaged any fears of anonymous postings. The other concern -- that of "fly by" postings -- does not appear to be the case. For a variety of reasons, people who have joined Backup Central to post to the forum have stuck around. They've posted other questions and answered other people's questions. Thank you again to all those who supported the idea by answering questions posted via the interface. Here's to another good year in 2008. --- W. Curtis Preston Backup Blog @ www.backupcentral.com VP Data Protection, GlassHouse Technologies
