A new message board is up
Jeff Shannon
jeff at ccvcorp.com
Thu Dec 27 14:11:09 EST 2001
Andrew Dalke wrote:
> Andrew Nguyen wrote:
> >A new message board (that doesn't have the Usenet delay) is up!
>
> >Also, usenet SUXXOR (sucks) because itttt issss soooo
> >cunfuseeeng... Why not switch to an EZBoard? Why have maling
> >lists that are too confusing? I for one say that we create a
> > NEW forum!
>
> But it does require a login, registration, including address,
> income(!), and marital status(!!) information, and a 300 line
> license agreement. Since it's a web based system there's also
> a lack of good search system, no way to add your own filters,
> no support for off-line reading, killing a thread, archive
> messages, or all those other features Usenet readers have
> accumulated over time. I don't think it can scale up to
> several hundred messages a day, like c.l.py has.
I agree, Andrew.
As a frequent contributor to another EZBoard group (focused on a
local community), I can say that for certain things, the features
that EZBoard has are great. For our local community group, I
wouldn't want to use Usenet. But, by the same token, there are
things for which Usenet is better. (And how on earth is Usenet
confusing? Maybe it's just a matter of using a crappy
newsreader--Outlook Express, perhaps?) I wouldn't want to read
this Python group on EZBoard. One should match the tool to the
situation, and however pretty and shiny a tool EZBoard might be, its
features do not make it the most suited for an open
programming-language forum.
EZBoard *can* handle several hundred messages daily, but it can get
to be a bit slow at times, especially since it tends to include a
moderate amount of graphics. Also, EZboard is commercial--it's
supported by popup ads. A community can buy freedom from ads, at a
rate that's determined by the traffic on that board--I'd estimate
several thousand dollars per year, at the traffic rate of c.l.py.
I don't want to see ads while reading c.l.py, nor do I think it's
reasonable to expect members to donate money. To be honest, I don't
think it's reasonable to require "membership" (however easily
gained) to post in a programming forum. For these reasons and
others (like sheer disgust at the thought of anyone using "l33t
sp34k" in anything other than total parody), I won't be
participating in this Python EZBoard.
Jeff Shannon
Technician/Programmer
Credit International
More information about the Python-list
mailing list