Re: st: RE: Correct Way to Respond to Posts when Email is Turned Off

[Phil Schumm <pschumm@uchicago.edu>]

On 7/29/2011 2:19 PM, Philip Jones wrote:
> Speaking of web forums, what is the reason that Statalist hasn't migrated from its LISTSERV origins to a modern, threaded, easy-to-track-what-you've-read web forum? I believe there is a good reason that most discussion sites now use something like UBB or the like.

On Jul 29, 2011, at 1:49 PM, Marcello Pagano wrote:
> We almost did a few years ago, but it was a little premature then and we would have lost a few folks with less modern equipment.  Maybe we should reconsider.  Any negative votes??  Don't give me the positives, I think I know them.


-1 from me (though I would love to see us move from Majordomo to Mailman).  My primary reasons for this are:

1) I realize that this is a personal decision, but I vastly prefer to consume Statalist in my email client (for many reasons).

2) I think it would be a mistake to base Statalist solely on a "pull" technology (i.e., requiring you to go to the web to read it), and email is by far the "push" technology with which most people are familiar.

3) Although some web-based discussion services will let you send (and receive) email, they often clobber messages in the process (e.g., hard-wrap, add formatting or other cruft, etc.).

It's worth noting that even today, the standard for open-source software collaboration (e.g., SourceForge, GitHub, Bitbucket, etc.) is to use a standard mailing list (in combination of course with a version control system, bug/issue tracker, Wiki, etc.).

I wouldn't be strongly opposed to moving to something that provided a web-based interface (e.g., the non-Usenet variety of Google Groups), as long as it provided all of the functionality we have currently (i.e., ability to send and receive email without munging the headers and/or body).


-- Phil


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