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Simon Waters wrote: > Wonder what it is about threaded discussion forums that make them so > unpopular?! My guess is the lousy threading display in most of them, and > that email with an archive does the job just as well if people follow > the rules. > > I think it is that users have to click on each posting to read it. It isn't really true of course... viz Slashcode, Groklaw's Geeklog etc, but then you find people complain that some postings are open, some just titles, some truncated and it is complicated. And then there is the user experience of email - which rather commonly is in email clients that don't actually do threading. Unlike the stuff us sophisticates use and wish to carry on using. Email is great, but a personal collection of email (even if it is not delivered over an unreliable service to only one of the three sites where you may need to read it) doesn't provide an easy solution for those who come in later - an archive of some sort does. Also discussion lists are great if everyone on them is interested, but if you have people who wish at most to follow one sub-branch of a big tree, being bombarded with all points emails irritates them. My 2p -- A -- The Mailing List for the Devon & Cornwall LUG http://mailman.dclug.org.uk/listinfo/list FAQ: http://www.dcglug.org.uk/linux_adm/list-faq.html