[MLB-WIRELESS] Mailing list Vs Forum?

[Jeremy Lunn]

On Sat, Jun 29, 2002 at 02:33:35PM +1000, Andrew Dean wrote:
> - I see it quite the opposite, if you aren't at your computer that has your
> mail client setup then you can't read them

Hmmm I use mutt over ssh so I can read my mail everywhere.  You could
use web mail though.

> (well you can read the archvie, but how up to date is it?) 

Depends how messages are added do it.  Most archives have the index
built only once a day as it would add to much load to the server to
rebuild it for each message.

> email from none registered users now... and you can subscribe to good forums
> so you get threads mailed to you... new or existing...

Doesn't make it anymore convenient to read them.

> - How do you figure this? if you have a decent forum all messages for 1
> thread can be shown (or say 10 at a time) and what are the chances that 100%

It utilises more CPU to generate dynamic web content.  And you end up
showing 10 messages at a time anyway so if you want to read most
messages you end up downloading 100% anyway.  Bandwidth is increased
because you add HTML.

> of the list is going to read a message? at the moment the message is mailed
> out to 100% of the list so it will be less load and bandwith used on the

However I think you'll find that a mailing list manager (or the MTA)
will send messages to multiple people on the same MX (or at list at the
same @host) in one go by using multiple envelop addresses.  So it
mightn't be as much as you think.

> message and some others.. if your at the top of the list you get it sooner,
> if at the bottom .. then i think i've seen people get it alot later...

What a mere difference of 2 minutes?  Some web based forums like
slashdot probably take longer than that to rebuild their static content.

> - Yes but you are still receiving the mail/threads you don't want ie wasting
> bandwith and server load...

As for server load, it would appear to be coping with it!  And as I said
before, each message can be send to multiple people on the same MX
in one go.

> - Yeah i wasn't sure if we have access to reading other lists...

It's only a matter of setting archives up if they don't exist already.

-- 
Jeremy Lunn
Melbourne, Australia
http://www.jabber.org/ - the next generation of Instant Messaging.

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