Re: [opensuse] true news group? Lew Wolfgang wrote:
> Randall R Schulz wrote:
>> On Monday 18 February 2008 10:33, Per Jessen wrote:
>>> My "problem" is that you were advocating the use of forums and
>>> bulletin boards over mailing lists and news servers.
>> Yes. And your problem with that is what? Do you have a specific 
>> objection, or are you going to continue to feign incredulity?
> 
> Lots of anti-web form examples have been posted, and I agree
> with them.  But the biggest objection to forums I have is that they
> are basically a "pull" process.  Mailing lists are closer
> to a "push".  I don't have the time to graze for the information
> I need, I'd rather it appear at my doorstop, so to speak.
> 

That summarizes it perfectly.

Discussions are best facilitated by "push" processes.

Most "Pull" processes(*) hinder discussion, and at the same
time, web-forums encourage drive-by vandalism.  Every yahoogroups
group works dual-mode (yahoo provides both mailing list and
web-forum mode access for every group), and they attract a
lot of spamming unless there is heavy moderation.

Some USENET newsgroups attract a lot of spam, but it tends
to be topic-dependant...although i would say that USENET
(not NNTP, but the framework which transmits NNTP) needs to
be re-vamped.  USENET was developed in the early 1980's, at
a time when spam was not a problem -- people committing bad
behavior were immediately identifiable, and and someone in
a position of authority(**) above them notified with little
difficulty.

(*) (Usenet being an exception because of its "one-channel
supplies all newsgroups" architecture)

(**)  (university superior, government superior, or in the
private sector, the person's supervisor at whatever defence
contractor the miscreant worked for)

> USENET, while being a "pull", allows much better access to data,
> in my opinion.  I was able to find the first mention of my name

I would say that USENET is just as much "push" as e-mail.

You log into an e-mail or USENET server, and grab all the
e-mail or USENET messages from all sources which was delivered
to it (or in the groups you are subscribed to for USENET),
and it all comes to your hard disk at once, not one message,
or a page of messages at a time, with all of the web-induced
delays ("just in time" delivery, 1000%+ overhead of HTML crap
compared to the size of the messages you actually want to read,
etc).


> in comp.sys.amiga on Nov 14, 1986.  My first posting was on
> Dec 26, 1990 on rec.railroad.  (thanks Google)  Thunderbird
> works quite well for both newsgroups and email lists.  Newsgroups,
> being a distributed technology, is quite robust in the face
> of network damage (censorship) too.
> 
> Regards,
> Lew Wolfgang


