Interest? alt.comp.freeware.moderated

[John Fitzsimons]

"I probably just missed it, but I have yet to see a cogent argument on
why a board is bad -- just a lot of heat." Yet another example --
albeit a valid opinion. Why bad?

< snip >

Email and newsgroup posts are both very easy to keep if one wants to
archive certain messages. Much more difficult with web forums.

Emailers, and newsreaders, generally allow for offline reading. Web
forums are much harder in that regard.

Searching emailer and newsgroup posts is generally much faster/easier
than trying the same on a web forum.

Killfiling posts, threads, authors is easy in emailers/newsreaders.
Not so with forums.

Emailers/newsreaders often allow a variation of colour coding of
posts. Making reading/searching much easier IMO. Web forums
seldom allow such configuration.

The area of a web board text is usually a very very small part of my
computer screen. With an emailer, or newsreader, I can make a message
as large as my desktop. Making less scrolling and easier reading.

There are other points that could be made but if anyone thinks forums
such as Mailwasher's are good then they would simply ignore what I
said anyway.

Regards, John.

--
****************************************************
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/ Oz \ John Fitzsimons - Melbourne, Australia.
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[Ben Cooper]

I think downloading and reading the EULA is at least required to make
certain the license does not change from one version to another, and
of course to make sure the first mention is on track.

This might be shared by someone who does not care to

moderate?

Reading the EULA wouldn't be a guarantee that it meets a
strict freeware defenition. An EULA can be written by anyone
who posts a "freeware" program.
The program would have to be downloaded, installed and then
checked against the defenition.
Is it for Windows, Linux, DOS, FreeBSD, Unix, Mac or against
any other of the plethora of operating systems?
Who checks each program? What do they use to determine if
it's freeware?

 

[BillR]

1) I cannot fetch news from a web board and read them offline - that
makes it more expensive to read web boards.

Gateway post back to acf? And see 5) below.

2) I cannot killfile people on a message board

Depends on board.

3) I have to go to a message board and search for news, they do not come
to me and show themselves.

I'm not sure exactly what you mean here. First, unless you run a
server, neither does a ng. And even then, don't you have to start
your reader and have it configured to look at an acf feed?

4) A web board is less comfortable than a newsreader

Strictly a matter of opinion, although I'll freely grant that
newsreaders are more customizable. Can you correct a ng post? Have
the OP marked OT?

5) A web board generates more traffic than a newsgroup

That depends entirely upon the group and the moderators and how the
board is set up. REMbranded reached exactly the opposite conclusion
(actually he was referring to posters, not posts, IIRC).

If some of the carping is eliminated, that will have value in and of
itself. If some types of post are (re)directed to certain subforums,
then many will find the remaining ontopic posts (from much closer to
their perspective) will be ontopic. Not to mention that most spam can
be readily identified and avoided or removed.

A board also can have such extra options as a flag or flags indicating
the general type of ware. There will still be disputes over specific
products, but at least the substantial majority can be readily
classified into a rew broad groups or by a few specific criteria.
Those who only want to see relatively pure freeware could easily set
their filters to exclude others. This won't be perfect but will
substantially reduce the volume for those interested in pure freeware
or only open source (or at least source available), if that is a flag.

Plus if something is misidentified initially, the post or thread can
be reclassified to prevent finding it in a future search.

BTW, thanks for a specific response.

BillR

 

[BillR]

< snip >

Email and newsgroup posts are both very easy to keep if one wants to
archive certain messages. Much more difficult with web forums.

I may have to agree with easier (or rather "more difficult") but I'm
less sure about "much". That may an eye-of-the-beholder or
already-familiar-with argument.

Emailers, and newsreaders, generally allow for offline reading. Web
forums are much harder in that regard.

Yes, but .... See reply to Onno.

Searching emailer and newsgroup posts is generally much faster/easier
than trying the same on a web forum.

I may have to agree in abstract, but not given additional
functionality. See reply to Onno.

Killfiling posts, threads, authors is easy in emailers/newsreaders.
Not so with forums.

Depends on forum.

Emailers/newsreaders often allow a variation of colour coding of
posts. Making reading/searching much easier IMO. Web forums
seldom allow such configuration.

But can, and also offer additional applicable functionality. See
reply to Onno.

The area of a web board text is usually a very very small part of my
computer screen. With an emailer, or newsreader, I can make a message
as large as my desktop. Making less scrolling and easier reading.

I'm envious. I only have one 19" screen and my eyesight won't allow
tiny print. Width and height, at least for reading, is flexible on
many forums, fixed on many others.

There are other points that could be made but if anyone thinks forums
such as Mailwasher's are good then they would simply ignore what I
said anyway.

I'll have to visit Mailwasher's forum to see whether it is
representative of my experience. I know I like to think of myself as
more open minded than I really am, but I am sure that I am not "simply
ignor[ing] what" you said.

Thanks also to you for a considered reply.

 

[REMbranded]

Reading the EULA wouldn't be a guarantee that it meets a
strict freeware defenition. An EULA can be written by anyone
who posts a "freeware" program.
The program would have to be downloaded, installed and then
checked against the defenition.
Is it for Windows, Linux, DOS, FreeBSD, Unix, Mac or against
any other of the plethora of operating systems?
Who checks each program? What do they use to determine if
it's freeware?

I'm of the impression the "less that pure" programs are a Windows
thing. Almost all DOS programs are shareware, but there are a few
freewares.

Do you know of any unpure programs for Linux or FreeBSD?

Unix and Mac requests don't come around very often.

At any rate, the readers are very keen on pointing out any wares that
are less than free here. I imagine the same will be true in a
moderated group.

There is a great amount of knowledge right here concerning programs
that are discussed by people who have installed and used them. There
are lists of spyware programs.

Logging programs deemed OT in an alphabetical text file would assist
in day to day moderation.

 

[Onno Tasler]

I'm not sure exactly what you mean here. First, unless you run a
server, neither does a ng. And even then, don't you have to start
your reader and have it configured to look at an acf feed?

I have to be online to read a web board. I cannot fetch the news, read
them offline, answer them and send them when going online at a later
tim. Instead, I have to browse the whole board (For marked threads, that
is a bit easier, but even then I have to read the message "new reply",
go to the thread and read it) for new messages, read them online (or at
least steadily go on, click, go off) and answer them online.

Also, I cannot delete news I am not interested in and keep only those
interesting for me. I can do so with a newsreader.

Strictly a matter of opinion, although I'll freely grant that
newsreaders are more customizable.

Also, a newsread can save complete threads more easily. On a web board,
you usually have to save several HTML page.

Can you correct a ng post? Have the OP marked OT?

Yes, I can do both:
Correcting your post by superseding it, marking it OT with adding [OT]
to the subejct line.

That depends entirely upon the group and the moderators and how the
board is set up.

A newsgroup transfers the plain text, and only the text. A web board
has also to transfer HTML site descriptions. (Not to mention that is has
to create these HTML pages from a database beforehand...)

Not to mention that most spam can be readily identified and avoided or
removed.

You can also identify spam posts and killfile them. (Under specific
circumstances, you can even cancel [=delete] them)

A board also can have such extra options as a flag or flags indicating
the general type of ware.

You can easily create this tags in a news subject line, too.
For example, [FAQ] or [Open Source] - Just nobody does.

BTW, thanks for a specific response.

I like specific answers myself.

bye,

Onno

 

[Aaron]

(e-mail address removed) (BillR) wrote in

"I probably just missed it, but I have yet to see a cogent argument on
why a board is bad -- just a lot of heat." Yet another example --
albeit a valid opinion. Why bad?

There are a lot of reasons (speed, ease of use), but when it comes down
to it, we are all usenet junkies

Some of them are quite vocally opposed, but I have missed most of the
good reasons so far.

Actually, the fact that most of us are posting here in the first place
would tell you something. So far of everyone that have piped in, all of
them are dead opposed as I predicted.

And if you use a newsreader, you probably use a browser. The reverse
is rather less true.

Yes, so you can be certain most of us are aware of the existence of web
forums, and there's a reason why we prefer to continue posting on the
usenet. The same can't be said of people posting on web forums only.

BillR

Aaron (my email is not munged!)

 

[Aaron]

Just adding to the list...

Web boards are usually slower with all the graphics. Sure, I suppose
there are SOME bare-bones message boards, but I have yet to see any!

I agree.

Besides the inability to kill-file, you can't do other filtering as
well.

You can, but it's very inflexible.

The search function on web boards usually sucks.

Agreed. And here's something more fundamental, web forums are pretty
shortlived compared to usenet groups and are more vulnerable to attacks.
All you need is for the owner to lose interest, fail to pay domain fees
etc and the forum is dead. In the short term, ISP server problems can
cause the forum to die off. I much prefer the decentralised way newsgroup
works.

Look at what happened to spywareinfo forums recently, all it took is for
one guy to get pissed off and everything was gone. It's back now, but
it's likely that eventually for some reason or the other spywareinfo will
die, while alt.privacy.spyware will likely to outlive it as long as
people are interested.




Aaron (my email is not munged!)

 

[omega]

Reading the EULA wouldn't be a guarantee that it meets a
strict freeware defenition. An EULA can be written by anyone
who posts a "freeware" program.

I remember with the spyware in 98/99/2000 -- the perpetrators pretty
much never disclosed anything about the true nature of their product.
It was only after so many people shouted and protested, there came
the later (temporal?) trend towards instances of acknowledgment in
the fineprints.

 

[John Fitzsimons]

A newsgroup transfers the plain text, and only the text. A web board
has also to transfer HTML site descriptions. (Not to mention that is has
to create these HTML pages from a database beforehand...)

< snip >

Adding HTML to messages can increase a download by 50% or more
in some cases. Not too good for people who pay for their internet by
MB downloaded.

Regards, John.

--
****************************************************
,-._|\ (A.C.F FAQ) http://clients.net2000.com.au/~johnf/faq.html
/ Oz \ John Fitzsimons - Melbourne, Australia.
\_,--.x/ http://www.aspects.org.au/index.htm
v http://clients.net2000.com.au/~johnf/

 

[John Fitzsimons]

I may have to agree with easier (or rather "more difficult") but I'm
less sure about "much". That may an eye-of-the-beholder or
already-familiar-with argument.

Okay. "Much" should have been "very much". A single key press keeps
any email, or newspost, archived on my computer. With a web board I
need to mess around with cutting and pasting.

I'm envious. I only have one 19" screen and my eyesight won't allow
tiny print. Width and height, at least for reading, is flexible on
many forums, fixed on many others.

These "can be" points of yours are rather pointless IMO. The web
forums I have been to mostly don't have the things that you say are
possible.

As for my point above, I am talking about screen real estate. If one
makes a forum text larger then either the whole page gets larger or
the text in a window gets larger. Both are very much inferior to
seeing emails/newsposts as "full screen".

I know I like to think of myself as
more open minded than I really am, but I am sure that I am not "simply
ignor[ing] what" you said.

IMO if anyone anywhere suggests that a web forum is as good as an
email list, or newsgroup reading, then they obviously haven't looked
very closely at things. The above advantages are pretty major IMO.

Still, I suppose they might not seem that way if people never read
things offline, never archive information, are happy with a small
window on a screen to read things, are happy with....

Regards, John.

--
****************************************************
,-._|\ (A.C.F FAQ) http://clients.net2000.com.au/~johnf/faq.html
/ Oz \ John Fitzsimons - Melbourne, Australia.
\_,--.x/ http://www.aspects.org.au/index.htm
v http://clients.net2000.com.au/~johnf/

 

[BillR]

Okay. "Much" should have been "very much". A single key press keeps
any email, or newspost, archived on my computer. With a web board I
need to mess around with cutting and pasting.

Which is to say that is how you have it set up. I'm not saying a
forum is superior in every way, but most of the objections I've seen
are true of only some forums or are symptoms of
I-already-do-it-this-way-itis.

These "can be" points of yours are rather pointless IMO. The web
forums I have been to mostly don't have the things that you say are
possible.

But some do. Why are you so dismissive?

As for my point above, I am talking about screen real estate. If one
makes a forum text larger then either the whole page gets larger or
the text in a window gets larger. Both are very much inferior to
seeing emails/newsposts as "full screen".

Forums can be variable width. I have never been to one that is full
screen (that is only shows the text and not the toolbars, window
borders, etc.).

I know I like to think of myself as
more open minded than I really am, but I am sure that I am not "simply
ignor[ing] what" you said.

IMO if anyone anywhere suggests that a web forum is as good as an
email list, or newsgroup reading, then they obviously haven't looked
very closely at things. The above advantages are pretty major IMO.

So are reliable threads, spam & OT deletion, editing, and integration.

Still, I suppose they might not seem that way if people never read
things offline, --- not often for acf
never archive information,

--- recent new drive indicates otherwise --

are happy with a small window on a screen to read things

--- I covet a pair of large screens and am frustrated by having to use
larger text now than in younger years

are happy with....

--- all the problems of NGs these days? The spam? The lack of
civility? The flaming? The need for a moderator?

So far the only persuasive argument I've seen is for off-line reading.
Archiving may or may not be much easier -- I suspect it depend upon
how you do it and where you store the information. Most of the rest
of the objections are issues with some, or even most, forums, but are
not inherent to them.

I also have not seen any rebutal to the many advantages of a forum or
of combining a forum with a gateway. None the less, I give up for
now.

 

[Andy Mabbett]

A new group [ACFM] will be created to handle the on topic posts.

Fist define on-topic posts, stating the clear and unambiguous rules
which will be used to test posts for on-topic-ness.

 

[Andy Mabbett]

Just because someone who does not know the 'rules' of the group (OR
should know better) posts about $ware/spyware/etc then there is no need
for us to make work for ourselves or the more generous by starting a
new group.
True.

The Mabbets of this world will just post to that group out of
bloody-mindedness.
Lie.

Life's too short for all this.

True.

 

[Andy Mabbett]

If, from acf, any of us could forward any message we see here which has
useful content about freeware, into acf.mod-best. And that a moderator
would then review for final judgement that it's a post about
freeware...

Effectively, you want someone else to set up a killfile for you.

 

[Andy Mabbett]

------------ And now a word from our sponsor ----------------------
For a quality mail server, try SurgeMail, easy to install, fast,
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NT or Unix without running out of power, use the best!
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Is that freeware?

 

[REMbranded]

Andy Mabbett <[email protected]> wrote:

Is that freeware?

Andy Mabbett Reply to [my first name] [at] pigsonthewing.org.uk
USA imprisons children without trial, at Guantanamo Bay:
<http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/2970279.stm>
<http://web.amnesty.org/library/Index/ENGAMR510582003?open&of=ENG-USA>

Boy. It seems the prospect of a moderated on-topic group is a burr
under your saddle.

The commercial tagline is a "copout" by my university and I have no
control over it. Perhaps you and Amnesty International can bail us
out? We need $$, lots of it! Quickly!

 

[Andy Mabbett]

Is that freeware?

Andy Mabbett Reply to [my first name] [at] pigsonthewing.org.uk
USA imprisons children without trial, at Guantanamo Bay:
<http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/2970279.stm>
<http://web.amnesty.org/library/Index/ENGAMR510582003?open&of=ENG-USA>

I quoted your sig, because I was commenting on it. Why did you quote
mine?

Boy. It seems the prospect of a moderated on-topic group is a burr
under your saddle.

I'll take that as a "No", then.

The commercial tagline is a "copout" by my university and I have no
control over it.

So none of your posts could appear on the proposed moderated group,
then?

Glad we've got that clear.