Brent writes:
>If I were to start from scratch today, I'd probably start with a WWW
>interface for user-level interactions (subscribing/unsubscribing), and
>another WWW interface for list management (config settings, approvals,
>etc.). I'd probably do the email interface a close second, but possibly
>only for the user-level interactions; I might decide it's
>better/simpler/easier just to do all the list-owner interactions through
>the Web interface. And so forth.
>
>The real question is, to what extent do folks want to keep pushing and
>stretching and kneading and reshaping the existing Majordomo code base, and
>to what extent do they want to start from scratch on something new that's
>designed for today's environment and uses today's tools? There are strong
>arguments for both, and there's nothing that says you can't do both.
It is funny that this arrived the same day that a new verions of Lynx
showed up. Let's not forget that there are still a few people in the
world without full Internet connectivity and graphic access to WWW
(several billion of them, in fact). We need to maintain some kind of
mailing list that maintains a strict email functionality so as not to
limit our lists to the lucky ones who live in T1 territory.
Although I run a Web server and have a lot of goodies at my disposal,
many of the subscribers to the mailing lists I run are in developing
countries and don't always even get their email regularly. But there are
ways of serving both clientele adequately. For example, with the lists
that are worth archiving, I use MHonArc to put the email exchanges on
the Web, so everybody should be happy. That seems a better solution than
looking at advanced tools that leave out a lot of people.
By the way, I've had the misfortune to be on several lists that do use
fancy WWW-based interfaces -- were they ever awful! That doesn't mean
that someone like Brent couldn't do a much better job, but I really
don't see the need, unless your postings have to contain lots of graphics
and URLs.
Bill Silvert
Follow-Ups:
|
|
