[Haskell-cafe] Re: Haskell Forum

[Evan Laforge]

On Mon, Jul 26, 2010 at 12:54 PM, Kevin Jardine <kevinjardine at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Jul 26, 6:45 pm, Nick Bowler <nbow... at elliptictech.com> wrote:
>
>> Since when do mailing lists not have threading?  Web forums with proper
>> support for threading seem to be few and far apart.
>
> Most of the email clients I'm familiar with don't support threaded
> displays and most of the web forums I'm familiar with do (although the
> feature is not always switched on).
>
> In my experience the debate between mailing list vs. web forum can
> become very emotional (especially when discussed via a mailing list)
> and I don't think it is that productive. Some people like one, some
> people like the other. That's why I think that it is useful to give
> people a choice.

Interesting, I've never figured out why some people prefer forums, but
you're proof that they exist :)  They always seemed like a clumsy
reinvention of usenet to me.  It might be because all my email clients
are threaded.  Apart from threading and attachments, are there other
reasons you prefer a forum?

How about something like google groups, which presents a web using
forum-esque interface to mailing lists?  It threads and provides a
separate place to upload files.  You can even design a few pages to
associate with the list for introductory material, FAQs, and whatnot,
sort of like a generalization of the "sticky thread" idea from forums.

I'm pretty sure there are web-oriented interfaces to this mailing list
too... where do they fall short?