[OpenIndiana-discuss] forum creation

[Nikola M]

On 01/28/15 08:28 PM, David Brodbeck wrote:
> On Tue, Jan 27, 2015 at 1:51 PM, Nikola M <minikola at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> I think it breaks down mostly between "people that know how to use mail
>> client", valuing their privacy and people who just "click" on someone's
>> proprietary services, depending on someone else for use of even basic
>> services on internet.
>>
> Mail clients are always problematic, though, and I'm not surprised people
> don't favor them anymore.

People in the business and personal world are using Mail clients very 
intensively.
Not every Mail server admin or service provider is happy with keeping 
all copies of all messages on servers forever, so Mail clients are in 
wide use and they will stay being one of main tools for actually main 
service on the internet, e-mail.

> Heck, I've used GMail for my mail for several
> years, even though I know how to set up and use an IMAP client and I used
> to run my own mail server.  The reason is I own four different computing
> devices and it's not reasonable anymore to commit to using only one of them
> to read email; having the mail stuck on one device's disk became a burden.
> GMail offered the only reasonable cross-device solution for me at the time.

Nothing stops you to use IMAP client on all your devices and I bet there 
is wide range of solutions on any possible platform, correct me if I am 
wrong.
>
> The privacy argument is interesting because it cuts both ways.  A mailing
> list means no one can tell which messages you've read, but it also means
> broadcasting your personal email address to the world.

It does not need to be that way (broadcasting e-mail address to the world).
Usually it is enough not to have spam and it is even not so bad to be 
able to be contacted by wide range of people.
Mailing list itself can have mechanism of cloaking everyone's mail 
addresses, that is what Freenode is doing.
Bur Freenode also does not allow download of cloaked mailing list 
archives to users, so one more reason to host mailing lists yourself.

> A forum lets you
> hide your address (and, if you use a proxy, even your IP) but not which
> specific items you read.

But forum does not let you hide anything else from forum owners, 
including private messages
and also it locks people inside forum itself, until they exchange 
their... mail addresses.
If one uses proxy-like techniques, say, Vpn, tor etc, it can also hide 
using any service if wants to, so nothing new here.

>> Using Newsgroups needs just ordinary mail client with Newsgroup support
>> and "subscribing" to groups.
>>
> I'm quite aware of how newsgroups work; I started out reading them in "tin"
> in college.  You're forgetting that it also needs an ISP with a working
> news server, which is increasingly rare.  I don't think my current ISP runs
> one.  Last time I used a newsgroup was about ten years ago, and even then
> it was a matter of sifting a relatively small number of legitimate messages
> out of an ocean of spam and broken threads.  It's kind of sad how that
> medium has declined.

I discovered that German Pirate Party group has a software solution to 
link News group with it's web representation that looks like Forum.
That could fulfill needs of both Web-Gui people and those used to Mail 
client with News support.
(And I bet there are some NNTP-Mailing list solutions for exchange 
messages or something, too)
If anyone objects to having only mailing list , that could be dug up but 
I suppose splitting Mailing lists and other representations could be 
productive even at very high volume of new users, not happening soon.

If someone thinks that Influx of new users would be largely contributed 
by allowing them to use Web interface to the list or something else, 
please say.
I personally think that clear blank forum or something would scare 
people away more effectively, then using Mail client with existing 
mailing lists.
But linking them all together could be viable if done right and someone 
needs to administer it, as well.

>> of exchanging messages. (both when I am online and offline!)
>>
> Yes, but that only works if you were subscribed when the question was
> asked...

Actually as I mentioned, one Can download mailing list archives (usually 
in .gz archives per month), unpack, concatenate them and give to mail 
client as directory content.
After recognizing messages in it, one can even sent such relived archive 
up to IMAP server (like your Gmail) (Crtl+A then copy to Dir on server) 
and you then can use full Mailing list Archive in any IMAP client you 
use, and even with Web interface. :)

>> Besides, searching mailing list archives is very easy, just narrow web
>> search engine to specific path where message archives are stored.
>>
> Assuming the archive hasn't blocked web spiders to try to prevent email
> address harvesting (an increasingly common technique.)

If archive can be downloaded, then it can be searched.
I think you are right about spiders protection for web search, but hey, 
archives are there to download.

> I like it much better then needing to browse through some simulation of
>> newsgroups and mailing lists on web sites, that forums are.
>>
> I think this is the nub of the problem.  Forums vary widely in quality and
> some are quite usable, but if you come in expecting them to work exactly
> like an NNTP client you'll always be disappointed.

Yes, true, I was mostly always disappointing in Forums, because they 
usually deserve it, not being by any exchange standard and being 
centralized around site that owns them.
Forums that can share messages with at least NNTP put a bit of light on 
the matter.