On Mon, 07 Jun 2010 10:17:39 +1000 Ben Finney <ben+pyt...@benfinney.id.au> wrote: > So you say. For the interface to be “better” it needs to keep the good > features of the existing interface. I include among the good features of > Usenet:
That's a great list of features. But they all apply to mailing lists as well. > * No need for creating a new identity; my email address is enough. Obviously true for mailing lists. > * No need for balkanising my identity; messages cross to all > participating Usenet servers. Ditto. Also, good word. I usually use "ghetto" when talking about FB, MS, etc. Same idea. > * Forums are kept distinct, but the easy option to cross-post is there > when appropriate. Ditto although I'm not sure that this is a feature. Mailing lists sometimes have options to prevent this which might be a good thing. In any case, it's nice to be able to choose on a list by list basis. > * The forums don't live in any single server or organisation, and new > servers in different organisations can be added to carry the load of > distributed messaging, so there is no machine nor organisation acting > as single point of failure. As with mailing lists but MLs allow even better distribution. With Usenet the hubs still have to carry every group. With mailing lists only the servers involved need to carry it. I guess the trade-off with mailling lists is that you get one point of failure for a particular ML but distribute the load much better. > * A single program allows me to subscribe to one, dozens, hundreds, or > thousands of forums, and use exactly the same interface to participate > two-way in all of them. Yes. This is probably my second biggest issue with forums. Ghettoization (balkanization) is number one. > * I can replace that single program with any other program that follows > the open standards, and the same messaging interface applies exactly. With mail that is also true. In addition, its a program that you already have if you have email. > Where is the “much better interface” that improves on all of that? I have always been a big fan of Usenet. I was using it back when you could subscribe and almost read every group. For a while I was a hub and downloaded the entire distribution to my little home computer. Binaries, what the heck is that? But I just gave it up a long time ago. Mailing lists just made so much more sense to me. I now run a number of mailing lists. I can't even run a news server on my own little ISP any more and have to contract out. In fact, my biggest complaint with this mailing list is that it gateways to Usenet. That's where most of the spam on this list comes from albeit the bulk of that is Google groups which I can easily filter out. By the way, what is the generic term for Usenet groups, mailing lists and forums? They all have a common overall purpose and it seems as if there should be a word. Hey, we could all go back to FIDO-Net. :-) -- D'Arcy J.M. Cain <da...@druid.net> | Democracy is three wolves http://www.druid.net/darcy/ | and a sheep voting on +1 416 425 1212 (DoD#0082) (eNTP) | what's for dinner. -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
