[Lincs] Worries About The Future Of The Group...

[Pete Hunt]

Peter Cooper wrote:

2 at once to save space...

> Dave Pearson wrote:
> 
>> The flip-side is, of course, that there are people like myself who can't
>> abide "message boards". While it's less of an issue for me now that I've
>> finally got ADSL a message board can be terribly inefficient because 
>> you've
>> got to be connected to the net the whole time you use them. On top of 
>> this
>> you can't use your own email/news composition and archiving tools to 
>> engage
>> with them. For some people this can mean that it's a costly and 
>> annoying way
>> of trying to communicate.
> 
> These are certainly complaints I would have brought up myself a year or 
> two ago, but they've become so popular nowadays that I've managed to 
> grin and bear it, and now find them reasonably usable to a point. 

I tend to use message boards if I need a fast answer to a problem that 
can't be solved by a google session.  I use mailing lists for less 
serious problems that I can work around.

But with the best will in the world, LLUG can't offer that level of 
support to members because we all have committments / jobs /lives / etc. 
  Personally, the last thing I want to do after a day faffing around 
with computers is come home and do more of the same.  You can have 
technical _discussions_ here, but there are generally more appropriate 
places for support.  There's no point asking "how do I do 
$random_complicated_thing?" on here if the answer is only a google away.

On a mailing list, things are more sedate - the speed with which some 
messageboards add pages of posts make them unreadable.

> Certainly mailing lists were popular several years ago, but I'm sensing 
> people seem to be getting sick of e-mail these days. (I'm personally 
> sick of IM, but I'm not gonna win that war it seems ;-))

I definitely prefer mailing lists for something like this, but use 
forums for fun (www.b3ta.com/board - for example).

my 2p

Pete