Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!uwm.edu!ogicse!orstcs!sapphire!pvo
From: pvo@sapphire.OCE.ORST.EDU (Paul O'Neill)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.next
Subject: Re: Programmers Mailing List
Message-ID: <18653@orstcs.CS.ORST.EDU>
Date: 31 May 90 23:30:35 GMT
References: <18523@orstcs.CS.ORST.EDU> <130071@gore.com> <18575@orstcs.CS.ORST.EDU> <90148.223926SLVQC@CUNYVM.BITNET> <8JMK73X@xavier.swarthmore.edu> <178@heaven.woodside.ca.us>
Sender: usenet@orstcs.CS.ORST.EDU
Reply-To: pvo@sapphire.OCE.ORST.EDU (Paul O'Neill)
Organization: Coastal Imaging Lab, Oregon State University, Corvallis, OR
Lines: 42

In article <178@heaven.woodside.ca.us> glenn@heaven.UUCP (Glenn Reid) writes:
>
>I'd hate to see a mailing list, mostly because the response time is a
>bit more sluggish .........
>
>One of the beautiful things about netnews is that just about anybody
>can join it at any time, ........

In article <184@news.nd.edu> mahesh@news.nd.edu (Mahesh Subramanya) writes:
>
>Speaking for myself, newsgroups are infinitely preferable to mailing lists.
>

 
THINK folks, USENET is not the answer to everything:

1)	A mailing list wouldn't have dweebs like me posting stuff you're not
	interested in (Glenn's quote, above, is praising low S/N ratio)

2)	Mailing lists have a much faster response than USENET.
	(Witness "sun-managers", and that's a big one.)

3)	Can you say: "Skipping unavailable article" ?
	Mailing lists are MUCH more reliable than USENET.
	I've never seen /usr/spool/mail fill up, our news partition does all
	the time.

4)	While you're on vaction or just to busy too keep up, the articles
	are still waiting in your mailbox, not expiring into gone-forever land.

5)	The members had to at least take the initiative to send a request
	to a list maintainer.  Just this tiny hurtle does wonders for S/N.


Frankly, I don't care if a programming subset splits off or not.  But, if
it does, mailing-list is much superior to usenet-news-group.


Paul O'Neill                 pvo@oce.orst.edu		DoD 000006
Coastal Imaging Lab
OSU--Oceanography
Corvallis, OR  97331         503-737-3251