<easlab@absamail.co.za> wrote:
> http://aplawrence.com/Opinion/nntp.html
> > [32]Will NNTP fade away?
> > --snip --
> > So what does the crystal ball say? Unless you are someone like
> > Microsoft who wants to compete with Google, there's no reason to run a
> > news server. Gone are the days when people would [45]run their own
> > NNTP server. Oh, I suppose some uber-geeks still do, probably out of
> > foolish pride more than any real benefit. Google Groups outperforms
> > anything most of us can do by an order of magnitude and then some.
> >
>
> It seems that this forum is already dying from the above described effect.
> IMO we need a backup/alternative.
Mailing lists are a good alternative, but the gateway between the
popforum mailing list and the comp.lang.pop has been, for me, a great
nuisance.
This is because I *once* posted a reply to popforum using my real e-mail
address, and it was "harvested" from the newsgroup by spammers. And then
was responsible for 90% of the spam I received over the next few months.
Consequently, I try to only reply via the newsgroup (using an invalid
address) -- but the gateway is broken for a significant percentage of
the time, and I think some of my replies have been missed by the large
fraction of pop aficionadoes who rely on the mailing list.
AFAICT, the most popular way to communicate nowadays is via blogs. Some
people maintain several blogs on different topics. It's possible to
reply to a post in someone's blog, and for a third person to reply to a
reply. There are some blogs in which the "owner" hardly takes part (I
believe).
Several bloggers maintain a community by including links to each other's
blogs (the most active participants). A disadvantage is the same as for
newsgroups: readers have to actively go to the sites (and there will be
advertising).
I, myself, have absolutely no inclination to have a blog site, on any
topic, and only ever look at any if someone posts the URL of a
particularly interesting article in one. But I raise the subject as a
free alternative which would be easy to set up. Someone working actively
using pop (or poplog) such as Aaron, or, e.g. Waldek commenting on the
state of his port to Intel 64 bit processor would be worthwhile. But
probably just one "blogger" would suffice for the whole current
community.
> Wikis seem to be growing.
FWIW, IMHO wikis are more suitable for the creation of reference
material, rather than for active discussions.
> Also since I won't be having 'always on' connectivety, the ability to
> compose and read off-line as NNTP allowed, is essential.
This is a real problem (for you). A lot of people now read even
newsgroups using google (the only newsgroup I read regularly has been
bombarded by naive readers under the delusion that it's an ordinary
google group).
Some people read news offline, e.g. on train journeys. But "always on"
is only going to get more commonplace everywhere (eventually).
Again, part of the problem is an unreliable mail/news gateway. If *all*
the discussion were in the newsgroup, you could subscribe to the
individual.net newsservice. It used to be free, but now has a very small
(ten euro) annual fee, and everyone I know who has subscribed to it
sings its praises. It's *very* complete, and keeps news for a long time
(I don't remember if it does binary groups). I last used it when it was
free, but wouldn't hesitate to subscribe if my current newsserver
started having problems.
> Q1 - What are other users ideas ?
I suspect that a mailing list *without* a news gateway is the best
option, for discussion. And a blog site (where people reported on actual
projects in progress) would probably serve better for publicity than the
newsgroup. If nothing else, a "project diary" (on a blog) is entirely
appropriate, in a way which it isn't, quite, on a discussion group.
Incidentally, I'm on about six mailing lists (including popfourm), plus
a few other people send me announcements about events/meetings that
might interest me. I only read *one* newsgroup regularly (and it's not
comp.lang.pop).
Low volume mailing lists are not a pain (I think I get a monthly
newsletter from sourceforge, for example, which hardly blocks my inbox!)
Jonathan
(To reply by e-mail, remove the invalid from the address, and change the
spam to "jlc2")
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