Re: Death of a group?

I don't like blogs. I don't think any one person can keep one going
for long with new, fresh and pertinent material. This means wading
through a bunch of them with the obligatory signup for each one to
find something or just to be a part. I'll read them if there is
something of interest but not as a rule. They are not the kind of
thing you can watch out of the corner of your eye during the day.

I don't like the SW forums because of their pigeon holing. The NG
allows one to see all the action and chime in if you have something to
share and to learn if you don't The learning part is missing from the
forum format. They can be good on the odd chance that a SW person is
lurking and willing to chime in and they are sometimes good for
getting a specific answer. SW may have purposely setup the forums to
drain people off from here but that is supposition.

Eng-Tips is just OK because the format is treeless and harder to
search and browse, but I do like it's user moderated format. There are
also a bunch of tech support people that hang there because they can't
get enough at work. And because it is a for profit endeavor some
things of general interest to SW folks can't be done there like UG
notifications.

SWCAD at google groups suits me fine. That is the other place I lurk
because it not only has the plusses of the NG but it works with email.
I can set my email filter to "ring" me if someone posts so it is
argueably the quickest place to get an answer if an answer is to be
had.

But the NG has one big advantage, it is archived; there is history.
Can't do that with email or some of the other formats. The NG can be
searched, filtered, kill-filed and handled in other flexible ways. It
is concise and totally open. That is also it's biggest weakness
because it takes a commitment to not do the bad behaviour on a purely
voluntary basis and is therefore a window into the dark soul of man
(and women).

Anyway, I posted a link on Netiquette, a discussion that hasn't
happened here in a long time.

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