birding-aus

Birding-aus a forum?

To: David Adams <>
Subject: Birding-aus a forum?
From: Scot Mcphee <>
Date: Thu, 28 Jan 2010 14:13:48 +1000
I wish to +1 all this.

Keep birding-aus a mailing list. I prefer things I'm interested in to
arrive ("push") in my inbox rather than me having to remember to
"pull" it. Which means I'd read it much less.

scot.

2010/1/27 David Adams <>:
> On Wed, Jan 27, 2010 at 12:26 PM, Clair Wenborn <> 
> wrote:
>> Hi All,
>>
>> I am wondering if it has ever been suggested that birding-aus change its
>> format and become a forum?
>
> This question seems to come up periodically on well-established
> mailing lists. I haven't read all of the existing responses on this
> thread but will toss out a bunch of points that are likely to come up.
>
> * Some people won't use forums, some people won't use email lists. Period.
>
> * Birding NZ went through this last year and it hasn't been a good
> thing. They didn't have a huge number of active posters and now they
> seem to have been split. So, the list is now less useful and the
> forum..well, I have no idea.
>
> * A meaningful percentage of people on the mailing list have some kind
> of meaningful technical constraint that makes the email more
> convenient: download speed/size limits, old hardware, shoving stuff to
> their phone, etc.
>
> * Forums are better suited to people that don't follow a lot of lists.
> They're a nightmare for people that are on many lists (such as
> myself.)
>
> * Yeah, the archives for this list are a bit hard and non-standard. It
> would be great to have a better search interface. Personally, I run
> all of my list emails into a Gmail account so that I then (over time)
> have my own searchable archive using Google-type queries.
>
> * Yes, a forum interface offers more features. Yes, this is well worth
> it to some. For others, it won't be worth it for one or more reasons:
> don't care, don't have the technical confidence to get used to the new
> features, don't have the time, etc. When you're replacing an existing
> system or user interface, the new version not only has to be better,
> it has to be *better enough*. There's a cost to relearning.
>
> I'm all for a forum as long as I never have to use it and can get
> emails like I always have ;-)
>
> Ways to improve this list:
>
> * Push the archives into something Google indexes.
>
> * Kill digest mode.
>
> * Change the default reply to away from 'original poster' and to 'list
> as a whole'.
>
> * Convince participants to send responses to RFIs to the list! I see
> all of these great questions in the archives but hardly any answers.
> This, I figure, is because the path of least resistance is to _not_
> share the information with the group. A better archive search isn't
> worth much unless the information is actually there...
>
> For anyone out there that is having trouble managing the amount of
> emails they get from this list (or any other), do yourself a favor and
> get a Gmail account. You get a nice search facility, you don't clog
> your regular mailbox with list mail, you can check the mails from
> anywhere you have an Internet connection, and it's free. (I'd guess
> there are other services as good or better than Gmail in these
> respects, it's just the one I started using for lists some years ago.)
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