[H-GEN] Re: [H-DSIG] software runs the world

Raymond Smith raymond at humbug.org.au
Mon Mar 21 06:10:54 EST 2005


On Fri, Mar 18, 2005 at 10:26:34PM -0500, Jason Parker-Burlingham wrote:
> On Fri, Mar 18, 2005 at 09:12:26PM -0500, Robert Brockway wrote:
> > On Fri, 19 Mar 2005, Russell Stuart wrote:
> > > BTW, it is my imagination, or is there a general movement
> > > away from mailing lists such as this to blogs and rss feeds
> > > as the vehicle for on-line discussion?
> 
> I think it's true, and in general I think it's pretty rotten.  Blogs
> tend to make it very difficult to tell if someone has replied to your
> reply; the general solution seems to be to sleep with one eye open,
> watching your referrer logs, or to use blogging software the sends email
> alerts when a comment is made.

My experience is similar. I think that blogs have absorbed a
lot of the 'op-ed' style posts that were previously the cause of
so many long-lived threads on these mailing lists and in other
places. On reflection this is not altogether a bad thing. There
are certainly fewer flame wars on this list than in the past
(despite a noble attempt within this thread to carry the torch),
although at the price of the odd worthy, long-running debate.

And certainly blogs are a lot better than ye olde personal home
page for getting a feel for what people are up to. I find it
quite enjoyable to read the random thoughts of people I know.
In fact, are blogs really that much more than a personal homepage
with a simple update mechanism and a pull event channel?

> > The lists I'm on (30 mostly technical lists, give or take) are still very 
> > busy.  Blogs would be more like news groups in application I think.
> 
> Not as much as you'd think.  What I do see is a very large number of
> PHP-driven forums which reimplement USENET, and poorly; there's no
> redistribution of content, no killfile mechanism, and it's impossible to
> crosspost, so on and so forth.
> 
> It seems to me that web-based discussion forums have removed most of the
> advantages of mailing lists and USENET without offering anything of true
> value for the kinds of discussions that many people want to have.

I think this is just one of many instances of 'web technology'
being used as a Golden Hammer of questionable utility.  Although
I suspect two things are against USENET when it comes to your
'average' Internet user. First relying on your ISPs subscription
means that you may not see all newsgroups unless you work at
it. Second, the text-only nature of the medium  -- given a choice
between a Froum with Dancing Mokey Smilies and USENET people will
choose the Dancing Monkey (with apologies to Bruce Schneier).

Cheers,

Raymond
-- 
raymond at humbug.org.au




More information about the General mailing list