A migration of the YDL lists to forums: 2004 08/03

[Bill Fink]

On Tue, 3 Aug 2004, Kai Staats wrote:

> Subscribers to the Yellow Dog Linux General list,
> 
> We are pleased to announce the creation of Terra Soft Forums:
> http://www.terrasoftsolutions.com/forums/
> 
> ... which will replace the use of the newbie, general, and devel email lists. 
> This new environment is more functional, aesthetically pleasing, and less 
> maintenance intensive in comparison to the mailman-based lists.
> 
> The existing lists will be terminated this coming Monday, the 9th of August. 
> (No need to terminate your membership list, I will take care of this for you 
> next week.) The lists archives will of course be retained. Please create an 
> account with the new forum(s), migrate conversations and threads, and enjoy!

Let me add my voice to the chorus of complaints about converting the
e-mail lists to a web forum.  I actually use the web e-mail archive
to read yellowdog-general and yellowdog-devel, and after examining
the web forum it is a very poor substitute.  With the simple web e-mail
archive I can see at a glance all the threads and what I have I already
read and what are new posts in a very concise form.  The web forum has
a lot of eye candy but wastes screen real estate like crazy.  I can
also easily keep local archives through e-mail of all the posts I've
submitted or responded to.

I agree this is a very bad idea and hope it will be reversed.  It would
make YDL a much less useful distro IMHO since the feedback of the YDL
community is one of the major value added benefits of YDL, and I just
don't see the web forums as being a viable substitute.

						-Bill

P.S.  I have always been a strong proponent of YDL (I even wear their
      T-shirt), but this would be a very bad move on TerraSoft's part.
      I also think they should have announced earlier that they were
      considering doing this rather than just announcing it as a
      fait accompli.  It doesn't show a lot of respect for their
      established user community.