[EM] This mailing list as a forum?

[Toby Pereira]

Andy
 
It certainly can be a problem if some people move and others don't, but from my own limited experience, I don't think it will happen. I was on a Yahoo group that converted to a forum, and while some people were reluctant to make the change, virtually everyone ended up doing so. Not only that, but there was an increase in new members and a dramatic increase in posts. I think people feel freer to post in threads on a forum than to a mailing list, where every post is the next in line and inevitably in the spotlight.
 
Even Google Groups (which I only know from the range voting group) seems to be a hybrid between a forum and a mailing list, so I don't think is as good as a full forum. Having said that, because it can be used as a mailing list, it is, as you say, a strict improvement over what we have now.
 
Toby

From: Andy Jennings <elections at jenningsstory.com>
To: Toby Pereira <tdp201b at yahoo.co.uk>
Cc: electorama list <election-methods at lists.electorama.com>
Sent: Saturday, 3 September 2011, 6:43
Subject: Re: [EM] This mailing list as a forum?


Toby,

I agree that it is a pain to try to reply to the digest.  I've switched to receiving every message as a separate email and it seems much easier.  The downside, as you say, is that there are a lot of messages sometimes.

I would support moving to Google Groups because I think it would be a strict improvement over what we have now: after the adjustment period, life would be worse for no one and strictly better for some.  But there would, no doubt, be a learning curve for some people.

And then there's the risk of what happened on the range voting list.  Someone created a Google Group with the intent of moving from Yahoo Groups to Google, but then some people didn't want to move and so now there are two lists to follow.  One on Yahoo and one on Google.

~ Andy



On Fri, Sep 2, 2011 at 10:40 AM, Toby Pereira <tdp201b at yahoo.co.uk> wrote:

I don't know if this has been discussed before, but most discussion groups on the internet (certainly the ones I use) use forums with separate threads for topics, rather than a mailing list. I think forums are easier to use and the threads are easier to follow. It's awkward to reply to topics on here unless you have individual e-mails sent to your inbox and it's a full-time job to put them into a separate folder. You can't reply via the central "hub". Mailing lists are the FPTP of the internet discussion world! Any thoughts?
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