Lists vs BB's vs Forums

As a newbee - I see a wealth of information about Elecraft products,
on this "list".   Unless I'm missing something - this "list" isn't the
easiest forum I've used.  It seems to be reliant on our personal
email systems - with little more than an "email checker" for incoming
posts.  Or am I missing something?

There seems to be no way of posting anything, or easily responding
to a previous post - short of sending that poster an email.  How "replies"
get linked to previous posts isn't explained.

I suspect I'll get used to using it - but there are much more
modern FORUMS BB's out there - which categorize posts,
and all that.

Elecraft makes a great product.  I'm probably the most recent
K2 owner - of kit # 5422.  And I haven't fired up the soldering
iron yet - still reading and checking and aligning my ducks up.

Fred N3CSY
Spring Hill, FL

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Congrats, Fred, on your K2! You'll have a lot of fun building and
using it.

These mail lists are much, much faster and easier to use than any web
based forum or BB system.  Have you tried using a news reader / mail
reader software such as free Forte Agent?

 <http://www.forteinc.com/agent/download.php>


I use their older version as the newer version is 'too modern' for my
tastes, but it makes short work of newsgroups and email. A big plus is
that it will not accept HTML.

On Thu, 16 Mar 2006 17:25:00 -0800 (PST), F and J
<[hidden email]> wrote:

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On Thu, 16 Mar 2006, F and J wrote:


> There seems to be no way of posting anything, or easily responding
> to a previous post - short of sending that poster an email.  How "replies"
> get linked to previous posts isn't explained.

Mailing-lists are an older and, imho, far superior form of forum. Among its
good points are:
-no connection required
-you get your own copy of all posts, which won't go away with the server
-standardized interface (the user's mail program)
-"push", rather than "pull" mode: information comes to you, rather than
viceversa.

You can reply "to the list" (and your "post" would be public) , to the
poster by personal email (private) or both. Be aware that this last case is
highly controversial: some people hate receiving duplicates, while other
encourage it, it really depends on taste and habits. Choose the safest
option and adapt if required.

Threading is done as usual with email: using subject and message-id and,
again, this is something each client shows in a different way, so the user
gets to choose that which fits his preferences.

The only situation in which a web-based system is preferable is when it
isn't a stand-alone thing, but it is part of a larger system.


> I suspect I'll get used to using it - but there are much more
> modern FORUMS BB's out there - which categorize posts,

You do the categorization the way you like and please, which might not be
the same way as the next guy.

I suggest that you visit this site and get started with Thunderbird:
http://www.mozilla.com/thunderbird/


B73,
Andrea.

--
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Test


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-----Original Message-----
From: [hidden email]
[mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of David
Sent: Friday, March 17, 2006 4:45 AM
To: [hidden email]
Subject: [Elecraft] Testing I keep getting two copies of every email


Test


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On Thu, 16 Mar 2006, F and J wrote:

> As a newbee - I see a wealth of information about Elecraft products,
> on this "list".   Unless I'm missing something - this "list" isn't the
> easiest forum I've used.  It seems to be reliant on our personal
> email systems - with little more than an "email checker" for incoming
> posts.  Or am I missing something?

That's one benefit...it's email based...which means you can actually
store messages on your computer.
>
> There seems to be no way of posting anything, or easily responding
> to a previous post - short of sending that poster an email.  How "replies"
> get linked to previous posts isn't explained.

If you reply to the address of the list, [hidden email], then
every list member sees the post...which is how the bulk of information here is
shared.

> I suspect I'll get used to using it - but there are much more
> modern FORUMS BB's out there - which categorize posts,
> and all that.

Yes, and, just like rigs, there are folks who wouldn't use a forum based
venue for love or money.

I have a mailing list for drake gear, and a web based forum...and over the years
found that some folks like the mailing list, others prefer the forum, but very
few walk "both sides of the street".

I have a very little used forum online at www.zerobeat.net/qrp/phpBB2/
I'd be happy to add an area for Elecraft related posts, but I suspect it
will not be used.

You can find out a LOT of information from this list by visiting
http://www.ac6rm.net/mailarchive/html/elecraft-list/

It's searchable.

  >
> Elecraft makes a great product.

Yes...and in my experience the folks on this list are some of the most helpful
you'll run across...and that's part of the Elecraft Magic.

73,Thom-k3hrn
www.zerobeat.net Home of QRP Web Ring, Drakelist home page,Drake Web Ring,
QRP IRC channel, Drake IRC Channel, Elecraft Owners Database
www.tlchost.net/hosting/  ***  Web Hosting as low as 3.49/month
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I'm one of those firmly in the email camp, but I participate in
a couple of lists that are also perfectly reflected in a forum
system. There's a commercial (but not very expensive) product
that does this - vBulletin. Post to the forum, it also shows
up in email, and vice versa. Forum threading is done by email
subject line. Messages are actually kept in a database like mySQL.

It's pretty cool. I've been contemplating converting one of the
lists I run just to see what it's like.

I liked usenet, too - better threading than the mail readers of
the day. I think the key difference is that I didn't have to
go looking for what's new, which is what it feels like trying
to keep up with a dozen different fora... (usenet isn't dead, btw,
it just smells funny).

73 de chris K6DBG
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Chris

I have used and run vBulletin forums for a number of years and although
there are mods available for nntp and email gateways VB does not support
this feature natively.

The forum threading is very frail, first filtered using message ID in the
header, then checking for RE: FW: VB: AW: etc in the subject line to
indicate a reply then checking the string after.

I have ran these email mods and they won't deliver the service you expect.

The only online community which has a well integrated email/web based
interface is actually yahoo groups.
 
> It's pretty cool. I've been contemplating converting one of
> the lists I run just to see what it's like.

I already ran 2 forums with the email / nntp gateway modification installed,
I was well impressed, it makes a beautiful archive and really nice search
features but threading is a bit unstable and requires a bit of volunteer
action to moderate / organise mis-threaded posts.

The thing to remember is that because the software has to be modified to do
this, which means that the volunteer author may decide one day to stop
support.

The forum software is commercial and the support is second to none, but mod
support is a big risk for a large forum.

Just a few points to consider, constructively that is.

John




 
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John,

Thanks for the info. It seems to work pretty well for the slimdevices.com folks,
but I only hang out there once in a while.

I just remembered gmane.org, too - they do an email/nntp/forum cross post
that's free and does spam detection and has a permanent archive and
RSS feeds.

It seems to work pretty well for several OS newsgroups/mailing lists
that I read there. But as you point out, it's a volunteer effort,
and who know what happens if they give up!

Yahoo groups works, but I find it annoying on several levels.

I'm not suggesting that the elecraft list change at all, by the way!

73 de chris K6DBG
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I'll second Andrea's remarks on mail lists being far superior to web
forums.  I would say that if the mailing list were to be replaced with
anything, it should be a usenet group.  But then the usenet group would
need to be moderated to avoid being completely overrun by spam -- so I
still think the mailing list is the best.

A decent email client (meaning a non-web-based client) will download the
latest messages and sort them by thread, assuming you're not subscribed in
digest mode.  It also should be easy to set up a "kill" file of people
whose blatherings you don't ever want to see; fortunately I have yet to
need that feature for this list.

An off-topic rave: I would recommend to everybody to try the Opera
browser.  It's significantly faster and just plain better than any other
browser I've ever seen, and it's free.  The best feature is the email
client, which is a generation ahead of any other.  It indexes emails into
an internal database instead of just dumping them in a pile.  This means
you don't need to manually sort your emails into folders any more (but you
still can if you just can't give up the habit -- they're called "labels"
in Opera).  The whole thing, browser and email client, are just a 3.7 MB
download!  The Standard Disclaimer applies as usual.

73,
- Rob W7GH
K2 #5004



On Thu, 16 Mar 2006 23:50:59 -0800, Andrea Borgia <[hidden email]>
wrote:


> I suggest that you visit this site and get started with Thunderbird:
> http://www.mozilla.com/thunderbird/
>
>
> B73,
> Andrea.

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As someone on the other end of things - maintaining a software program with
many users - I find a BBS to be far superior. It's much easier for me to
stay abreast of what's happening, it doesn't matter where I am: the BBS is
there for use with a database which gets backed up every night and copied
over to a second web machine. With just the Yahoo! mailing list I was losing
the plot.

But when I am not the developer of the product I prefer a list like this.

My ideal would be email integration with the BBS - I use phpbb and will not
change to anything else as I am otherwise happy with what it offers.

For project tracking I use Gemini.

Simon Brown
---
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Holidays: April 10 - 21, 2006 as GD4ELI
----- Original Message -----
From: "Rob Locher W7GH" <[hidden email]>


I'll second Andrea's remarks on mail lists being far superior to web
forums.  I would say that if the mailing list were to be replaced with
anything, it should be a usenet group.  But then the usenet group would
need to be moderated to avoid being completely overrun by spam -- so I
still think the mailing list is the best.

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On Sun, 19 Mar 2006, Simon Brown (HB9DRV) wrote:

>
> My ideal would be email integration with the BBS - I use phpbb and will not
> change to anything else as I am otherwise happy with what it offers.

I's love to see a way to integrate phpbb with my lists...that way, the folks
that prefer one venue over the other could share information with "the other
camp".

If you find such an application let me know, and I'll do the same for you.


73,Thom-k3hrn
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