[vcf-midatlantic] Let's add value to the club, and have fun doing it!!!

[william degnan]

On Sun, Dec 27, 2015 at 11:22 AM, Jason Howe via vcf-midatlantic <
vcf-midatlantic at lists.vintagecomputerfederation.org> wrote:

>
>
> On 12/26/2015 11:13 AM, Dave McGuire via vcf-midatlantic wrote:
>
>> On 12/26/2015 01:40 PM, Dave Wade via vcf-midatlantic wrote:
>>
>>> The problem with many forums and especially the Vintage Forums is
>>> that you have to visit them to see new posts and there is no decent
>>> mobile client. I do visit the Vintage Forums but miss out on many
>>> others Atari, Mercedes-Benz, 3D-Printing to name but a few, as these
>>> all require explicit visits to see posts. I really don't understand
>>> why Forums are better than UseNet news.
>>>
>>    I think the root of this issue is the type of activity "using the
>> Internet" is for different groups of people.  For those people for whom
>> getting online is a form of recreation, having time to burn, the "Oh,
>> I'll go check over there and see what's going on!" type of "polling"
>> system can work well as a leisure-time activity.  But for those of us
>> who work in front of a screen, the interrupt-driven nature of a mailing
>> list tends to be a lot more efficient.
>>
>>    I've thought about this a lot over the years, as I try to decipher the
>> inexplicable mentality of the "Turn everything on the Internet into a
>> WEB PAGE!!" people, and that's the best theory I've been able to come up
>> with.
>>
>>                 -Dave
>>
>> Dave,
>
> Speaking as a professional web guy, I couldn't agree with you more. If it
> doesn't land in my inbox it practically doesn't exist.  Hell, I haven't
> even remembered to check comp.os.vms in like 6 months, and that's barely
> more involved than typing "slrn" in a terminal somewhere.  The only
> argument for the "turn it into a webpage" mentality is because that's what
> the customers expect.  Everyone has a web browser open 100% of the time,
> the web is the default graphic terminal of the modern age.  In my
> organization, we have CLI and Web Interfaces to many for many of our
> services.  The UI of the CLI is horrendous...The web interfaces were
> written by the CLI folks who couldn't understand why a web interface was
> needed.  UI issues not withstanding, as I've been tasked with going through
> and updating tools, the web interfaces are getting the overhaul, the CLI
> tools are getting ignored. but I digress.
>
> That said there are a few web forums I visit, but I tend to miss a lot
> because I er...miss my polling interval due to high IO wait...er something.
>
> --Jason
>


Who here visits every craigslist post when they can just write a keyword
script to search for what they want directly?  Same goes for any web
service that has port 80 open for API / GET method.  You can do the same
for the web forums.

Google et. al. is the most efficient way to find information.  No
substitute.  Mailing lists seldom come up at the top of search rankings
because they almost alway veer off of into un-related chit chat from the
main topic/subject header.  The search engines filter out spam pages by
advertisers and mailing lists with "bait" topic headers.  It's hard for
Google to differentiate a legit mailing list from a spammers and that's why
they do so poorly in a search.  Even if you find a thread in a search it's
a pain to find anything useful around the side comments and topic drift.
Bottom/top posting makes it hard to find the beginning of thread, I just
give up.  I don't get why people find mailing lists useful for anything
other than socializing and posing questions when you're lazy or can't
search Google very well.  It sometimes seems like some people ask questions
because they know someone else will compulsively feel compelled to do your
Google searching for them.  I guess it's the nature of our species.  The
free rider problem in economics, etc.

My point...

As with many of you I do web searches all of the time on very specific
vintage computer-related topics.  Quite often searches lead to a post on
the *vintage-computer.com <http://vintage-computer.com> forum *(and like
forums) consistently.   That's because there are a lot more tightly
moderated  threads.

As far as vintage-computer.com/ forum I don't need to check every post or
read the new ones to find this site useful.  Who said you should?   I don't
have time to read every post, who does?  I just search Google for what I
need and review the linked page for what info it brings.
vintage-computer.com often comes up on top and has "hey have to checked
here?" links as well.  The thread may be from 2009, or earlier.  Info is
just as good.  I would never find my answers from the forum interface, web
search is the ticket

This mailing list is at best 10% technical, mostly it's chit chat, just
like cctalk (wish they left cctalk and cctech separate).  If not directly
coming from a web search at least with vintage-computer.com I can jump to
the forum section of interest to me and ignore the rest.

For my modern work I use stackoverflow.com all of the time because it comes
up most often in a search with useful code examples.  I don't even know if
they have a forum, I am not a member.  I am sure they have some kind of
forum or group participation system, I could only imagine  how boring it
would be.  Does not matter. As with any forum I just jump from a search to
the page I need.

In short, if people visit vintage-computer.com/vcforum/ to ask and receive
answers and only 2% of it is useful to me that's fantastic, as long as it
comes up in a direct-link search.  I don't need to visit every page to find
value in forums as long as other like-minded people post there.  And they
do.  We all benefit when knowledge is shared.

I think you guys against the web forum approach should not get bent out of
shape because the world has gone device-independent browser-based !

One of us One of us....

...people find more value in the forum web method for communications, other
than socializing, compared with mailing lists.

Mailing lists for chit chat, forums for info, and places like archive.org
and bitsavers for the docs.

-- 
Bill