Hi John, > I noticed the remark in the Xen posting, "please do never send files to a > mailing list". I think that this implies the need for a hosted discussion > group arrangement. That will preserve the history of discussions which I > think has benefits for this group.
Well there already is an archive for our mailing lists on the web :-) http://www.mail-archive.com/freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net/ http://sourceforge.net/mailarchive/forum.php?forum_name=freedos-user > Given a history it would be possible given a really good archive search, > quicker answers to well know questions and associated replies. See above :-). > Threads can have comments added at any time, either immediately > or even years later. You can do the same with email, but if I understand your suggestion correctly, then you introduce the problem that comments would live in www space while the original mails live in email space. So I would say I prefer if people just reply to emails at any time ;-). Using interfaces like nabble allows you to reply even to old archived mails even without you ever having received that mail by mail, I believe? > If something happens to the maintainers such as an injury or worse > other could be found to take their places. It would allow for a > structured organization of question groups. It would not require > each list member to maintain the archive of the questions and replies. All mentioned benefits are available with a normal mailing list and a web archive for it, as the ones we already have :-). > It would also allow relevant files to be stored within the archive. While this is theoretically true, I must say I myself never visit "group webpages" of for example the yahoo lists which I am reading by email. It is just very convenient to get the mail by mail without having to log in somewhere or check some webpage to see whether a new posting has shown up etc ;-). > Does sourceforge.net have this facility or would you have to go > elsewhere to get these features? Actually we already do use this facility, which is another good reason to believe that people do not actually gain from forums: http://www.freedos.org/ Look at the news items and the "read more" links. Each news item starts a thread in a sourceforge forum: This thread http://sourceforge.net/forum/forum.php?forum_id=789150 for example discusses "new fat32 undelete". Jim posted a comment three weeks ago, but I only noticed this week, by accident, as the comment did not automatically get to my mailbox, as opposed to what a reply to an email would have done ;-). We also have a Wiki, even two of them, a Sourceforge feature request tracking system, Bugzilla bug mgmt system and a FAQ which would work better if more people would notice when a new question has arrived and would help by answering it :-). In addition, you can meet on our IRC (there even is a Java client if you have no IRC). There are several NNTP newsgroups and you can visit the general DOS web forum of Robert :-). There are also several reference sections like LSM package list (versions, maintainers, URLs...) and SVN source code repository with www interface for easy browsing. As you can see: Information sources and places to share your FreeDOS experience with others abound, all over the net... Happy FreeDOS easter everybody! Eric ------------------------------------------------------------------------- This SF.net email is sponsored by: Microsoft Defy all challenges. Microsoft(R) Visual Studio 2008. http://clk.atdmt.com/MRT/go/vse0120000070mrt/direct/01/ _______________________________________________ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
