OK, the forum is coming..

Hans L thehans at gmail.com
Tue Jul 24 19:33:29 CEST 2007


On 7/24/07, Ted Lemon <mellon at fugue.com> wrote:
> Worrying about your email address being exposed is pretty silly.
> That's like worrying that the ice on a pond will break when it melts in
> the spring and your house will fall in.   Don't build your house on ice.

Exactly, build it on solid ground (a web forum).

I'm guessing that's not what you really meant, but I'm still not sure
your point is.  Are you saying that if you don't want your email
address harvested by spammers, then you should not participate in
discussions about openmoko at all?  Keeping your email address private
IS a valid reason for the use of forums.

> As for forums, they are very nice for casual use.   They are terrible
> for staying in touch, unless you visit them obsessively.   The nice
> thing about a mailing list is that the mail keeps arriving in your
> inbox, you see it go by, and you can pay attention or not as you choose.
> And if you miss something, it's easy to go back and find it.

There are plenty of ways of "staying in touch" when using a web forum.
 Almost every forum I have used has some way to "subscribe" or "watch"
particular threads.  When you visit the site, you can view a list of
all your subscribed threads that have been updated since your last
visit.  You also have the option to get email notifications each
time(or as daily/weekly digests) those threads are updated.  In my
opinion the best thing about forums as compared to mailing
lists(although I'm not advocating *replacing* mailing lists in any
way) is it dramatically increases the *Signal To Noise Ratio*.  Some
people just don't want to read every damn conversation remotely
related to openmoko.  They want to ask their specific question, and be
notified when they get a reply.  Or they can search for their
particular issue, find some existing thread, and subscribe to that
one.  This is what makes forums great.

Hans Loeblich




More information about the community mailing list