Time to revisit newsgroup status

Doug Way dway at mat.net
Fri Feb 18 23:22:37 UTC 2000


On Thu, 17 Feb 2000, Eric Arseneau wrote:

> Stephen Pair wrote:
>
> >Does eGroups (or similar) not fill the bill for those who prefer not to
be
> >subscribed via email?
> >
> >With the services like eGroups and deja (and others) a newgroup can be
used
> >as if it were an email list, and an email list as if it were a
newsgroup.
>
> The biggest issue I have with eGroups is the fact that an ad gets sent
with
> the messages.  We have one of these setup for Pocket Smalltalk.  The ad
> itself is not much of an issue, what is of issue though is that replying
to
> the e-mails from eGroups is almost impossible.  ...
>
> I vote STRONGLY against an eGroups mailing list.

Actually, I think Stephen was just referring to the ability to use the
archived information on eGroups.  This is already happening, you can go to
the eGroups site and read the Squeak list if you want.

I agree that there's no reason to move the list server itself to be on
eGroups, since the current UIUC list server works perfectly fine, and
without ads.  (I don't think anyone was actually advocating this...)

It's kind of cool to look at the monthly Squeak-list usage stats on
eGroups, though... see http://www.egroups.com/group/squeak/info.html .
We're currently at about double the volume of one year ago.

As far as newsgroups go, I don't think this list will ever be replaced by
a newsgroup... it's too successful as it is right now.  However, if Squeak
were to become a popular development platform at some point, and this list
volume gets out of control, and it's decided that splitting the list is
unavoidable, then it might not be such a terrible thing to have a
newsgroup, *in addition* to this list.  The one big (only?) advantage to a
newsgroup is that it's more public, and readily accessible to the curious.
(An email list feels more "private", which is both good and bad.)  I
occasionally venture onto other newsgroups, comp.object, comp.lang.python,
alt.mcdonalds.ketchup, etc., just to see what's goin' ahn... they're easy
to casually peruse if you have a newsreader (or deja.com).  Newsgroups are
certainly the most "public" internet forums available.  If there were no
comp.lang.python, I still probably wouldn't bother signing up for a Python
mailing list, or searching out a list archive, since I'm only mildly
interested in Python.

So, I guess I'm saying a newsgroup is good from an approachability point
of view.  Plus it doesn't hurt from a marketing point of view to announce
that Squeak is worthy of its own comp.lang.smalltalk.squeak (or just
comp.lang.squeak) newsgroup.  (Smalltalk is not dead! :-) )  There would
be some problems with figuring out what the purpose of the newsgroup would
be, versus the still existing mailing list, though.  Perhaps the newsgroup
would be focused more on beginners and those seeking help, while the
mailing list would be for the hard-core Squeakers.  (I would certainly
hang out on such a newsgroup to help newbies here and there...)

(Such a newsgroup would be public, not private.  A private newsgroup is
pointless... a mailing list is the best private forum.)

Anyway, I think this is mostly hypothetical.  I think the list is doing
fine for now, but if the Squeak community increases by tenfold (not
inconceivable), an extra newsgroup might be worth considering.  It might
even bring the mailing list back to a more normal level. :-)

- Doug Way
  EAI/Transom Technologies, Ann Arbor, MI
  http://www.transom.com
  dway at mat.net, @eai.com





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