Date: Tue, 11 May 1999 06:35:25 +1000 From: Sue Blake <sue@welearn.com.au> To: "Mr.Delicious" <elcoz@usa.net> Cc: freebsd-newbies@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Mailing List vs Newsgroup Message-ID: <19990511063525.08748@welearn.com.au> In-Reply-To: <19990510201538.29656.qmail@aw164.netaddress.usa.net>; from Mr.Delicious on Mon, May 10, 1999 at 04:15:38PM -0400 References: <19990510201538.29656.qmail@aw164.netaddress.usa.net>
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On Mon, May 10, 1999 at 04:15:38PM -0400, Mr.Delicious wrote: > I am fairly new to FreeBSD (running about 3 months now) Welcome! :-) > and about the only thing i don't like about FreeBSD is the fact that > you have support through a mailing list. In fact, I hate it. I can't > read by thread or anything. Hmmm, I read list mail by thread all the time. Perhaps you need a better mail reader? I use mutt and it shows the threads beautifully. If you're stuck on a Microsoft system you might try Pegasus which is free and very good. > It also appears snobbish. One can only see what going on if one has > subscribed to a mailing list. Not so! You have a few alternatives. The FreeBSD web site's search page has a section that lets you search the mailing list archives, years of stuff for every list. But you might prefer to go to http://www.egroups.com/list/freebsd-questions where you can actually read the messages, a bit like a newsgroup :-) And you can post without subscribing. > Many times I stumble across an interesting group in comp because > I was looking for something else. Who is going to stumble across a mailing > list? That's why an inferior system like LiGnux gets so much new users. We > need to be more vocal. To my mind, if they get more users because their users like newsgroups, good on them! Newsgroups have lost their usefulness over recent years, becoming a breeding ground for spammers, trolls and flamers, and becoming so expensive to serve that in many places (outside USA no doubt) they are hard to get. But there's one main reason why support is done through a mailing list and not a newsgroup. The people who do the support, giving their professional skills for hours each day without payment, happen to prefer it. They do what they do for as long as they enjoy it, and it's in our interests to prolong that enjoyment, not shorten it. With the high quality of support we can get for free, I'm not going to start telling them to do something they find less comfortable, and I don't think you would either. Let us know if you're having any problems with the lists or email in general. -- Regards, -*Sue*- (` () '` <-- a +3 uncursed budgerigar named Einstein To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-newbies" in the body of the message
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