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nafex - Re: [NAFEX] ikonboard, a better solution to a listserver

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Subject: North American Fruit Explorers mailing list at ibiblio

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  • From: Road's End Farm <organic87@frontiernet.net>
  • To: North American Fruit Explorers <nafex@lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [NAFEX] ikonboard, a better solution to a listserver
  • Date: Sun, 17 Feb 2008 22:49:01 -0500


On Feb 17, 2008, at 8:48 PM, Robert Mullins wrote:


'Rooting' was absolutely accurate when he described email listings being
'antique', but it would be more descriptive to say it's 'archaic' from a
technological perspective. I have wide interests, and read across the
board in many disciplines and I simply don't know anyone still using
mailing lists as a repository of information. You said " I want to see a
better argument against the email list than that somebody thinks it is
"antique"." Well, with technology this is a very real, and good
argument. Just as a good reason why NOT to buy a Model 'T' Ford would
be that you just can't find parts to them. I'm not saying that it
wouldn't be cool to have one, but it's functionality is greatly
diminished if not pretty much useless.

I'm not sure that's the right analogy. I'm on several email lists; they seem to continue to function, and now and then somebody posts on them about new ones they're starting. So I have the impression that it's still quite possible to do the equivalent of "finding parts" for mailing lists.

Here's a different analogy: how about a car versus a bicycle? People who drive cars would only still be driving Model T's if they think Model T's are cool; and even then, they'll have more problems with their driving than those will who are driving something newer. But some people only use bicycles, some people only cars, and some use both a car and a bicycle, for different types of travel. They're both methods of transportation; but they're better at different aspects of transportation, and some people's lives fit better with one than with the other. Why should we all have to live the same way?

The technology of both cars and bicycles has continued to improve. The bicycles now on the market are no more the same as the bicycles on the market in the 1920's than the cars are the same as the Model T's. I don't know whether people are also improving the technology of email groups, such as the ability to search archives; but I wouldn't assume that this isn't possible.

I personally don't know anyone who wants to pour through around 100
emails a day just to get to information they are interested in.

I find it even harder to hunt through those posts contained in dozens of threads on a board; any of which, despite their titles, may include information that doesn't fit into the title of the thread.

I myself considered turning off the email flood I get from NAFEX because
it's just way too much.

There isn't usually anywhere near this much of it! (I say, contributing yet again to the pile). And what I do when I'm too busy is, I don't go to the boards at all; so I just miss discussion on boards entirely. I rarely go back through the archives when I do get time to go back on. If it comes into the email box, I at least glance at it, and get some sense of what's going on.

I'd also like to note that having the discussion as a whole come at me means that I at least glance at posts it turns out I did want to see, when I would almost certainly have missed them on a board. I doubt I'd have checked a board thread on blueberries, for instance, as my soil is too sweet for them -- or so I thought. But a while ago there were several posts on this board to the effect that blueberries sometimes do just fine in soil with pH in the range of mine.

And I'm in agreement with Karen Kellogg, quoted below. --

On Feb 17, 2008, at 9:09 PM, Karen Kellogg wrote:

I like the mailing list too. I like the chatter coming to me, not
me having to go find it. I can always google a topic for
information, but what happens on this NAFEX list seems to me to be
more of the kind of talk one would have over a backyard fence with a
neighbor who also gardens or grows fruit trees.

The backyard 'over-the -fence' exchange is certainly archaic and
antique, but it suits me just fine. If all this chatter goes to a
bulletin board where I have to search out various threads and try to
remember what I was interested in and where it was, searchable or
not, I would not be bothered to do it.

Send it to my in box and I read some, scan through some, save some,
delete some. What I end up with is the lore of the members in my
own useful format: a folder, a note on an index card, a printout.





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