scott wrote:

> I find the web-based forums I use way better than NNTP.
> 
> One of the main advantages is that threads are nicely organised, and if 
> some noob starts a new thread asking the same question for the 234234th 
> time it gets merged with the existing thread on that subject.  If a 
> thread goes too far OT then it gets split into a new thread, similar 
> threads get joined, there just seems to be a lot more "housekeeping" 
> than is possible with an NNTP server.  This then means that if you want 
> info about how to fix splotchy patches in radiosity the info is all 
> there in one thread titled "Sticky: How to fix splotchy patches in 
> radiosity" under the "Radiosity" sub-group, rather than spread across 
> 867 different threads in 5 different groups.

OK. I've never seen that on any web forum, ever. All of the web forums 
I've seen are like NNTP, but more primitive. (E.g., messages are 
"threaded", but purely in the order the messages were posted. You can't 
have branching threads, for example.)

> And of course, you can access a web-based forum from any machine without 
> having to install a client (although POV has a web interface for its 
> NNTP server).

People were quick to point out that the Haskell mailing list can be 
accessed through "gmane", which is web-based. So that makes it OK, 
doesn't it?

(Er, well, no... You still have to subscript to be able to post 
anything. And you still have to actually receive an email before you can 
reply to it; my ISP keeps marking the messages as spam for some unknown 
reason. Also, when you hit reply, by default Thunderbird replies to the 
original sender, not the mailing list.)

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