Quoting Evan Koblentz <evan at snarc.net>:
A serious problem indeed. My personal opinion is that
classiccmp's format
itself of using a plain email list is a big part of the obstacle our hobby
will soon face, re: our breed becoming extinct, if we're already on the
endangered list. For the most part I strongly prefer the simple email list,
and I think most people here agree. But communities like the web forum at
www.vintage-computer.com/vcforum and the group blog at
http://community.livejournal.com/vintagecomputer/ are growing faster than
classiccmp, at least to my perception. Why?
The audience at
vintage-computer.com seems to be a bit different than the
audience of this list. This list is far more 'hardcore.' There is a much
wider variety of hardware being discussed and there is a lot more big iron
represented. That being said, the less 'hardcore' forums are more accessible
to the rest of the population.
Both places have noise problems. On the web forums it is generally a 'less
professional' audience and the level of knowledge is not as deep. They also
tend to go off into the tulips quite a bit, and I'm not talking about DEC
Ethernet cards. Here on the cctalk list the off-topic discussion seems to
arise from people trying to be overly pedantic and showing off their hardcore
eliteness. Yes, I feel inferior because I'm interested in old 8/16 bitters and
I don't build my own CPUs from raw sand. ;-)
Btw, I like the email/text nature of this list better. It serves as a higher
barrier to entry.