On Jan 15, at various times, Jeffrey Sharp wrote:
> In my quest to cover every aspect, to think about every permutation of
what
> ClassicCmp *could* be in the future, I have yet another question to ask
> ClassicCmp subscribers: What if ClassicCmp were a weblog, in the style of
> Slashdot or Kuro5hin?
I have to add my vote to the many others who've said "NO!!!"
> - Posting and reading of messages would be doable from a web browser.
An
> email interface could be developed, but it wouldn't be the primary
> method of participation.
I would hate that.
> - You would have an account with a username and password.
Right, I need another username/password (likely with different rules to all
the rest) like I need another hole in my head :-)
> - Members can participate from any computer with a web browser. Even
lynx.
> Surely anything that can run a mail client can run lynx...
Browsers are much more cumbersome and slow than any sensible email client.
And run on fewer systems. I sometimes use older systems for which there
is no web browser, not even a text-based one, but there is a mail client.
And using a browser require you to be online to read, which is not so good
for those of us who use dialup. It also makes it harder to save individual
messages. I often do that with mail; it's much harder to keep copies of
web pages sensibly.
> - Anonymity and privacy can be more well-respected. The 'sender' of a
> post is your username, not your email address. A system can be
> implemented where another member can discover your email address only
> after you give them permission to do so.
You could also do that with mail. I'd prefer that wasn't implemented,
though see below. Sometimes it's more appropriate to respond directly to
someone, off-list.
> - There's no worry about HTML, attachments, wierd character sets, spam,
> virii, or cctech moderation delay.
You could do most of that with email filtering too. In fact, it would be
nice, in my opinion, if we did filter out the HTML (and the HTML portions
of multipart/alternate messages, which we seem to have had more of
recently).
> - Your inbox receives less clutter. You spend less bandwidth on mail.
Actually, most people would spend *more* bandwidth on a website, because
going back to a previously-viewed message would typically reload the page.
More importantly, there are a lot of dialup users here. With a website you
need to be online all the time you're reading, rather than slurping down a
chunk of mail (as my system does a few times a day) to read offline. Less
importantly, my system can do an early-morning mail fetch just before the
end of the cheaper-rate nighttime period, and the mail is then there for me
to read when I'm sufficiently awake (ie after two mugs of coffee) a little
later (daytime call rate).
> - It's a huge change from the status quo. We may lose some members.
Including me :-)
Returning to the idea of having both email and a website, isn't the website
essentially an extension of the existing archive (possibly more
sophisticated)? I agree it's good to have both, but let's keep the mailing
list as the primary and the archive as, well, an archive.
> The trouble with MUAs is getting some way of either (a) serving
> mail folders to remote locations or (b) serving the login session to
remote
> locations. Both of those are doable (IMAP, SSH) but can be a pain to set
up
> for some users. Then there's the problem of ensuring you have the right
> software at the remote location (IMAP-capable email client, SSH client).
In
> some cases (e.g. student lab, internet cafe on vacation), you can't count
on
> that. In nearly every case, you *can* count on some form of web browser.
I disagree. Most ISPs run either IMAP or POP3 (or both). I have yet to
see an Internet cafe, or attend a conference with 'net facilites, where I
couldn't read my email. *Replying* to the list might be a problem in a few
cases, but most ISPs (at least, most I'm familiar with here) operate some
kind of authentication system so that users away from their normal location
can still send mail (eg replies) from Internet cafes and the like.
> On Wednesday, January 15, 2003, JP Hindin wrote:
> > It surely can't be hard to have the mailing list archival software
munge
> > eMail addresses...
>
> Not at all. But messages delivered to subscribers aren't address munged.
You
> can look at the headers of this message and get my email address. I don't
> think it's a big deal, but someone else might.
Fair point. I don't mind my address being in the headers either, and in
fact I prefer them to be there so people can email me directly, but if some
do and some don't prefer that, perhaps we could set some preference
per-user so that their submissions are/not munged. Some list manager
software has that facility built-in.
Summing that lot up, if the list were changed to become primarily
web-based, I'd vote with my feet -- albeit with great regret -- but I have
no objection at all to enhancing some of the mail facilities and providing
additional methods of access and/or additional services.
--
Pete Peter Turnbull
Network Manager
University of York
Received on Thu Jan 16 2003 - 14:46:00 GMT