[Tfug] Is Social Networking Sites Reducing Activity on This List?

[John Gruenenfelder]

On Wed, May 01, 2013 at 11:52:44AM -0700, keith smith wrote:
>Hi,
>
>I belong to a number of tech mailing lists such as PLUG and AZPHP.  The AZPHP
>list has gone almost completely dark.  It has been that way for maybe 3
>years??
>
>I'm wondering if the social networking websites might be drawing down
>membership and activity.
>
>Any thoughts? 

I have found that many have moved away from mailing lists to web forums, open
or closed.  For example, much of the work done on Android hacking is conducted
via numerous fora.

I don't care much for this change.  Rather than using your MUA of choice you
are stuck using whatever forum software the admin has chosen.  Also, a lot of
people are using forum posts as poor substitutes for actual web pages.  For
many Android ROMs the announcement, indeed all of the details, is presented in
a forum post.  The result is a mass of poorly organized information.

The more attentive posters will provide edit upon edit as new and important
information is added in new posts.  To get the whole picture, however, you
usually still must read the entire thread otherwise you risk finding out about
bugs and limitations the hard way.  Remember the Good Old Days (tm)?  When a
person who created something worthwhile enough to share also took the time to
create at least a minimal web page for it?

The only benefit I find to this new forum-centric way is that it allows for
more fine grained division in forum topics.  That is, creating one account
will let you access all of the subcategories on the forum without needing to
subscribe to each one individually.


-- 
--John Gruenenfelder    Systems Manager, MKS Imaging Technology, LLC.
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