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

[Bexley Hall]

Hi John,

On 5/5/2013 4:27 AM, John Gruenenfelder wrote:
> On Wed, May 01, 2013 at 11:52:44AM -0700, keith smith wrote:
>> 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.

8<

> I have found that many have moved away from mailing lists to web forums, open
> or closed.

8<

> 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.

The main advantage that I've seen is that it is easier to distribute
"non-textual" material -- as well as making the viewing of same a bit
more "seamless".  E.g., if I want to show a circuit fragment, I
can paste a snippet from a schematic into a post and not have to resort
to ASCII-art renderings of the circuit (which *always* seem to get
mangled regardless of how careful you are with "font" selection).
Ditto formal documents (PDF's, etc.).

Doing this in non-forum venues is either expressly prohibited
("no attachment" policies), an "imposition" on the readership
(i.e., folks with slow connections aren't keen on large
attachments that they might not even be interested in seeing!)
or just inconvenient (i.e., require a second step to view).

If everyone involved has a reasonably high speed connection and
folks are considerate in picking their attachments (e.g., a low
resolution image if a higher resolution one is unnecessary),
then email seems to be the best bang for the buck.  Email comes
*to* its recipients instead of requiring them to visit a
forum, etc.  So, discussions tend to stay more synchronized and
contemporary.

And, *closed* (or "well-moderated") lists help keep the spam
and "drivel" to a manageable level (moderation, I think, is
easier to do in a web forum since you can elide posts
after-the-fact and save at least *some* of the viewership the
hassle of unrelated crud).