ADMIN: What if ClassicCmp were a blog? - test-drb@ccmp.vtda.org

16 Jan 2003

Please see my point-by-point comments below...

Cheers!

Ed Tillman
Store Automation Tech Support Specialist
Valero Energy Corporation
San Antonio, TX; USA
Phone (210) 592-3110, Fax (210) 592-2048
edward.tillman(a)valero.com <mailto:edward.tillman@valero.com>

...
   -----Original Message-----
 From: 	cctalk-admin@classiccmp.org@PEUSA   On Behalf Of JP Hindin
 &lt;jplist(a)kiwigeek.com&gt;
 Sent:	Wednesday, January 15, 2003 10:08 PM
 To:	cctalk(a)classiccmp.org
 Subject:	Re: ADMIN: What if ClassicCmp were a blog?

 On Wed, 15 Jan 2003, Jeffrey Sharp wrote:
  Right away, I see several benefits:
   - Members can participate from any computer with a web browser. Even  lynx.
 And right now members can use any eMail client, even elm or
 mutt... They're just as common, right?
  	[Tillman, Edward]  Web browsers are slower, crankier, and more of a
hassle than any email client, including the older ones...

...
     - Anonymity
and privacy can be more well-respected. The 'sender' of a
     post is your username, not your email address. A system can be  It surely
can't be hard to have the mailing list archival software munge
 eMail addresses... It seems to be doing it now okay. Where's the problem?
  	[Tillman, Edward]  If the person really wants that kind of privacy,
why is he/she here?  From my admittedly short-lived  perspective, this list
is a rather comfortable coming-together of professionals and hobbyists,
experts and laymen who like what they do, and want to share their
information and resources openly.  Putting it all behind the proverbial
firewall would most assuredly kill it.

...
     -
There's no worry about HTML, attachments, wierd character sets,  spam,
      virii, or cctech moderation delay.  You
can't attach eMails to the list can you? (How do you attach a worm
 therefore?). As for HTML and character sets, its a small inconvenience
 honestly - not that many posters use it, after all.
  	[Tillman, Edward]  Moderation delay *can* be a good thing.  What's
the issue?

...
     - Your inbox
receives less clutter. You spend less bandwidth on mail.  Instead you spend it on
all the extra HTML markup on web page posts?
  	[Tillman, Edward]  If folks want less clutter in their inboxes, they
can darned well configure their email clients with topic folders (rules...),
as I do both at home and at work.  That way, the list downloads directly to
its folder, leaves my inboxes clean, and is in a tight package when I'm
ready to read it...  Almost all email clients, regardless of age, allow
that.

...
     - It scales
well as more members join and start posting. 
  	[Tillman, Edward]  As an email
list, directly configured into user
defined topic folders, this isn't even an issue.

...
  With a fine MTA (qmail anyone?) you can do alright,
but I agree, a slick
 mod_perl style web interface probably scales "better".
 However, as my friend always used to say, when we are so logged with
 traffic that we have scaling issues - well that will be a good day indeed
 to know we are that popular, and dealing with it will be a joy.
 (He was a Buddhist, what can I say)
  	[Tillman, Edward]  Buddist, huh?  Maybe that's why all this is
working so well...? (snickers!, smiles!)

...
     - Features
you want can be added in code, quickly. The current setup  is
      great for turn-key mailing lists and such,
but it is tough to  extend.

 What kind of extra features?
  	[Tillman, Edward]  Ditto...   (?)

...
  This is just my two cents; I would rather not move to
such a style of
 list. I think classiccmp is wonderful the way it is.
 Feel free to pick bones out of my retort.
  	[Tillman, Edward]  Hehehe...  I kow how you feel.  Sysops, Admins
and Mods always wanna experiment, and sometimes, we even do it right.  I
discovered a long time ago, to my chagrin when I lost over 100 users on a
BBS: If you have a good thing, don't mess with it.

...
  JP