On 24 Nov 2005 at 14:20, lee wrote:
> Bernie Cosell wrote:
>
> >What's unfortunate is that the web-based forums are *SO* bad as to be
> >nearly useless [especially compared with email- or usenet-based ones].
> >
> >
> hmm I disagree. I use phpBB with Mail2Forum integrated, and I am quite
> pleased with the results.
> I have also added other mods to phpBB, however, to bring its 'default'
> performance up to what I consider necessary.
I've used several phpBB-based forums and mostly don't like them: no two
use the same interface quite [e.g., for two forums that have very similar
topics, one has "next thread" go backward in time, and on the other it
goes forward; in my email client *I* can choose whether things are in
chron or reverse-chron order]. It doesn't keep track of what I've seen
and what I haven't (other than in a VERY broad-brush, easily screwed up
way that's basically useless); when it tells me that a thread has a 'new'
post, that's it: I need to shuffle through the whole thread to figure out
how far I'd read it last time and then continue on. It is SLOW. Even on
our T3 at work [don't even ASK about my 28.8 dialup at home] the click-
wait-click-wait is a PITA compared with having things ready at hand in my
email client. No kill files, no way to highlight threads I'm interested
in, no way to save copies of interesting messages, No way to tailor the
interface to my preferences, etc....
And it is 'pull' instead of push -- and so in order to keep abreast of
the 35 programs for which the 'support' has moved from a mailing list to
a web forum, I need to remember to cycle through all 35 websites [with
the usual very-poor keeping track of what you've already seen, inability
to kill/ignore threads you're not interested in, each one uses a
different interface [NONE tailorable to my preferences], 35 more account-
names and passwords to keep track of, etc].
Altoghether, I really can't find anything particularly good about web-
based forums versus the comfort, ease and efficiency of using my email
client. About the only thing I've heard positive about web-forums is
from folk not very proficient with email, and their comments basically
reduce to 'well, it's better than reading email with outlook express".
/Bernie\
--
Bernie Cosell Fantasy Farm Fibers
mailto:bernie@fantasyfarm.com Pearisburg, VA
--> Too many people, too few sheep <--
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