[Assist] Proposal for a forum

David david.pizarro at openmailbox.org
Wed Sep 14 23:55:25 BST 2016


Hi Parabola community, I wanted to propose the creation of a forum. But
why? well, as everything in life, it has it´s advantages and
disadvantages, but I´m not thinking in replacing the mailing list. In
this webpage
https://www.freelock.com/blog/john-locke/2010-03/mailing-list-or-forum-theory
everything is explained, very clearly. Some advantages of forums are:

-Conversations are grouped by topic
-There is one place to go to see an entire history of the community
-Forums are usually better-organized, easier to browse, easier to  search
-You can subscribe to some topics and not others, have a very granular
control over what you pay attention to
-Forums are "pull" -- you have to go to the site and "pull" the content
down, instead of it being pushed to you and possibly interrupting your
other activities

In contrast, mailing lists seem archaic, with lots of downsides:

-More stuff to manage -- it all ends up in your inbox if you don't set
up smart rules for dealing with it
-Harder to find answers, archives are generally organized by date not topic
-The same questions get asked over and over

(copied directly from the website, check it out!)


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