> LM> Having to look at email was the base assumption here. This being the
> LM> majordomo list and all...
>
> Majordomo is a tool. Like any tool there are things that it is good for
> and things that it is not good for. It is not a good tool for what you
> described.
Actually it is good, it just is not efficient.
[Re: announcments in local newsgroups]
> LM> Have you done it with a non-captive audience?
>
> No, nor would I ever. There is a word for forcing people to read mail they
> do not want to read: spam.
I'm not sure you addressed the question here. I wanted to know if you
have ever made announcements work in local newsgroups where the readers
had no other reason to read news on your server (and in fact may not
have a newsreader at all). My guess is that it won't work.
> LM> Would people who normally don't use your news server connect on a
> LM> regular basis just to check if anything was posted to your local
> LM> groups? How do you get them to do that?
>
> Simple: make the news server the primary point of broadcast. If the
> messages are important then those who really are interested will use it.
> As for those who do not... there is another saying: you snooze, you lose.
Ummm, I don't think you say that to the board of directors of the
organization where you are trying to provice the service. They
(and most other users) are scattered more or less evenly across 50
states and may or may not have reasonable local internet access.
I can give them a POP mailbox or forward to some existing address,
but I'd prefer to have some way to share bulky items that did not
involve making a copy for everyone who might remotely have an interest
in it. These days virtually everyone has a web browser, and there are
some tools for archiving lists to make them available via http so
I'm surprised that this hasn't been done already. Some browsers
know how to deal with URL's of the form 'news://host/news.group but
I don't think that is universal or that you can specify an individual
article. Byte magazine was working with an adaptation of MhonArc that
made a newsgroup available via http and allowed posting responses, but
I haven't checked the status recently. I still want the possibility
of mailing directly for the people who have email but no direct internet
access.
Les Mikesell
les@mcs.com
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