Path: chuka.playstation.co.uk!news From: James Rutherford Newsgroups: scee.yaroze.freetalk.english Subject: Re: mailing lists (I say no!) Date: Wed, 29 Apr 1998 18:39:15 +0100 Organization: The Hex Heroes Lines: 60 Message-ID: <354765C3.5F80@writeme.com> References: <35469E55.A55E0C15@hotmail.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: atl4-035.publab.ed.ac.uk Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Mailer: Mozilla 3.03 (Win95; I) I think the points raised so far are mostly very valid. The Yaroze groups were certainly my first experience with newsgroups and I'll freely admit that at to begin with, I hadn't a clue how to use them. It is clear that many people do not read the newsgroups, even less must post - but this seems to be part of more a general point about the 'Net' bit of Yaroze. Okay, so we have (quick count) ~115 SCEE registered homepages. That really isn't bad - far more of a potential community than most people would have you believe. Granted, some/most? are little more than a 'hi, I'm here' and many have been left gathering dust. However, it's also fairly clear that many people do not use the net access as much as they might. Updating your page (in my experience anyway) earns you about 100 hits (in approx. one week). That's 100 out of a potential 1000ish SCEE/A combined. I know that I'm probably unusual in that I check the server almost daily - my net access is a university 'freebie', but I'd imagine that most people check at least weekly(...?) And with that, check everybody's new page updates. Mmm, I'd better start distilling what I'm thinking for you... Basically, yes, the newsgroups could be more active - but they really aren't as dead as many people make them out to be [I talking SCEE newsgroups, BTW]. One sure-fire way of helping them go belly-up is by reducing the traffic - mailing lists being the Devil's tool here. I can see many, many more advantages of newsgroups over mailing lists. With newsgroups, you know what you're letting yourself in for - you can browse as you like, unlike having things forced into your email account... Please don't think I'm being small-minded here, I'm aware how easy it is to delete messages, but I'd prefer not to have important administative mail bounced away because my email account is filled with source code (a very real danger at the moment!). Sure, mailing lists are important for those that can't get onto the newsgroups and here is where Sony needs to make it as easy as possible for people to 'fall into' them - [although I'm aware of a problem I had with the latest version of NN and linking to newsgroups - yuk!] However, I'd guess that nearly everybody who has registered onto the mailing list also checks the newsgroups... Maybe some find it easier to check email, but that's offset for me by the difficulty I have when I try to follow the discussion threads. And do people really find it more intimidating to post to newsgroups than to batch email? I'm not convinced. James (~mrfrosty) Oh, and nobody is justified in complaining about the quietness of the newsgroups. For God's sake start a discussion thread instead - there are lots of people out here gagging to contribute to reasoned debate. ...Newbies too, give it a go - you won't find a much softer environment, and we'd love to hear from you.