[SEL] Curious

[Paul Pavlinovich]

Hi George,
I find that forums are best to visit "after" and search for answers. 
When they're well run and well maintained the entire forum becomes a FAQ 
that you can mine for valuable information. There is little or no 
encouragement to post on them or do a running read unless you're very 
interested in the subject. This is partly because they're slow. With an 
email list its all there, sitting on my PC whenever I care to read - I 
run at the speed that my PC will give me the messages. With web forums I 
have to wait for the pages to load -. No, I'm not without broadband - 
but even with broadband pages are still "slow" - guess I'm spoilt - why 
would I want to wait for 4 seconds when I can read email with 0 seconds 
wait time?

Another down side is that forums often vanish without warning. So far 
the SEL (and other lists I'm a member of have demonstrated their 
longevity). With a list, if one person can no longer run the service 
then another can take over almost seemlessly (e.g. Brice handing the SEL 
over to Spencer all those years ago) - this is much harder with a forum. 
Unless you both run the same base kernel (or OS version for windows 
people), same database, same version of PHP (or other web language of 
choice e.g. ASP.net), same version of the forum software, etc, etc, etc 
then it is damn near impossible to back up one forum database and bring 
it up on another server.

This is the reason I've never put forum software on Steam & Engine 
(www.steamengine.com.au) - I've been tempted many times and actually 
have forum software on the test machine to see how it works - but I've 
always resisted turning it on because I think the ATIS Steam list and 
the COALS list that I host adequately handle the need.

Forums must be actively managed by one or a small group of 
administrators. Email lists are self governing with anyone able to step 
up to the plate and accept the role of policeman on those few occasions 
when it is necessary to do so. Forum admins can (and often do) go power 
mad which just upsets people and loses the spirit of community that 
takes much time to build and often cannot be rebuilt.

Forums can also be comment spammed by unscrupulous people either seeking 
to destroy the forum (disgruntled member) or people jamming it full of 
advertising and phishing scams. These messages have to be managed and 
deleted. This can turn into a lot of work for an individual to handle. 
This is the reason I turned off the guestbooks on my site. Yes, there 
are software ways to block these posts, but they always find a way 
around your block. It is hard to stay one step ahead. My current 
incarnation of the Steam & Engine databases takes the user's update and 
sends it to me. If I think the update is worth it then I manually 
approve it for publication. This means I get about 2,000 messages per 
day for rubbish updates. I lose a LOT of proper updates as it is 
difficult to find them in the spam chaff.

Regards
Paul

Best, George wrote:
> I'm curious as to why people haven't been using the new ATIS forums.
>
> Is it because Harry's Smokstak already provides that service and no one
> sees a need for another?
>
> I know that many years ago these email lists were handy because some
> people (like myself) had email, but didn't have internet access.  I have
> internet access now, but in the beginning of ATIS I only had email.
>
> Curious as to whether anyone on the list still only has email access.
>
> I still like the email list as you can often get responses quicker.
>
> George
>
>
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