Re:[OT] [DL] E-mail is... easier?

[John Billings <john@dwarven.co.uk>]

Dannyboy O1 wrote:

> I have to wonder here, because I've never found a list to be as easy 
> to work with as a forum.  Could be something I'm doing wrong,

Probably

> maybe I can get some answers here.

I hope so...

> obviously use hotmail for this,

Yup.. there it is right there....

> so all my mail is done online.  I use the digest version, because that 
> actually makes these a bit smaller.  Hardly matters, because I would 
> read them all anyway, since I can't tell from a subject line if 
> there's any real content, or some idiot posting "yep" with 95 lines of 
> copied text.

I guess this is true.  You also never know when someone will start raking
over old coals.

> The forums don't have great subject lines either, but an entire 
> conversation thread is on a page, which is great for when you can't 
> remember offhand what started the thread off and don't want to hunt 
> through a hundred e-mails you got that week.

Any proper mail client can do threading for mailing lists automatically...
examples including  mozilla, and mutt.

> Hotmail, some might know, has a limit to the inbox space.  1 mb.  I 
> can't keep these things, unless I go through extra, annoying steps.  
> Forums keep the whole thing in a searchable archive, with all the new 
> posts tagged...

Again, hotmail is your problem, not listservs.  Use a proper email 
service, and
you'd have a much better time of it.

> What, exactly, /is/ this mysterious inconvenience these forums pose 
> over e-mail?

a properly configured real mail client will always be superior to a 
forum with format
pre-defined by the admin.

> I'll grant you, I've got some issues with e-mail.  Before this, I did 
> most of mine through a unix system with no GUI.

pine? mutt?

> And I was on the Alternity list when that game was about to get 
> published.  150 e-mails a day on a slow terminal plus college 
> classes.  Bad combo.

Two words:

Email. Filters.

> Same thing as this list, basically.  I find it easy and pleasurable to 
> surf a forum, and a pain to do my e-mail.  Spam, annoying relatives, 
> more spam...

Again, email filters.

> headaches from trying to translate >s into a coherant timeline after 
> formatting errors have jumbled them.  (when enough >s get in to push a 
> word far enough to start a new line... which doesn't have any >s.)

Using super long lines can have this effect.

>  
> Given all that... the difference, to me, looks like mostly format.  
> Sure, it's another site to hit regularly.  I already surf webcomics 
> habitually.  Forums update a lot more often.  And if my idiot aunt 
> sends another 500kb animated flage and midi music "patriotic" 
> atrocity, I don't have to miss anything when my e-mail bounces.

So there you go - still your email reading system that's the problem, 
not the listserv.

> Sorry if this is a rant, I do this when I write tech support too.  ;)

And I bet they love you too.

Anyway, my advice to you is to get yourself a proper email account, and 
a proper email client.
If you really don't want this traffic, then there are instructions for 
unsubbing at the bottom of
this mail.


HTH, YMMV, HAND.