Re: wordpress (was Re: FW: call for a vote -- should debian-user mailing list replies go to author or to list?)
On Sunday 28 August 2005 04:18 pm, Mark Crean wrote:
> I suspect an important reason for the popularity of web boards is that
> they provide a greater sense of community than a mailing list and
> become, for some, a place to hang out. At present, though, I don't think
> anyone's really cracked the problem with web boards, namely that mailing
> lists are fast, simple and don't require a gui to use even though they
> are less flexible than the boards in some respects.
Agree. Hence the suggestion entailed a blog and the existing email list as two
views on exactly the same data.
> In addition, web
> boards require quite a lot of oversight and maintenance, in my
> experience, not to mention server resources. So someone would have to do
> a lot of work.
To me that's the real problem.
Frankly I have no hope for anything like this being implemented in the near
future, but still want to advocate for it. The mailing list is a tremendous
resource. For people in remote locations (like me) it's a necessary lifeline
for using the Debain distro. And if it is necessary to say, I'm not
disparraging the mailing list.
Instead I have these dreams sometimes, probably inspired by the thought that
the 100 or so emails I get on this list each day that contain lots of really
useful information, and every single user of the list is likely working on a
computer that individually has more power than all the computers I touched as
an undergrad combined. GNU/Linux is a wonderful collection of complex
software and the Debian distro is magical. Yet the one thing hasn't changed
much in 30 years and that's the production of documentation and support
information. That sort of work rarely if ever gets the cudos that writting a
few dozen lines of clever system code does even though it is just as
(arguably more) critical -- especially at this stage in the GNU/Linux life
cycle.
We all dream.
Andy
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