Re: [gentoo-user] Gentoos community communication rant

[Al]

> Well, whether the headers are from an IMAP server or an NNTP server,
> they're still headers.  It's my understanding that Thunderbird only

point 1:

Right, if you compare IMAP and NNTP it is similar in this. In NNTP it
is the default to only read the header. In mail (IMAP, POP, HTML) it
is the default to get it all deliverd. That strongly influences how
the community as a whole feels about postings and discussions. It's
not only about the single user.

> downloads everything in my mail folder because I tell it to.  I could
> just as easily not tell it to, and only double-click on the messages
> that are interesting to me, and simply delete the rest.  Since I'm
> trying to learn as much as possible about Gentoo (I've only been using
> Linux about a year or two), I choose to download it all, cause I'm going
> to read it all; I learn a lot from things that I don't even intend to use.

point 2:

That is the most important point. In NNTP you can download an read all
postings from the past  (with or without the body). You can search
them, without the use of a search machine, directly from your reader.
You don't need to discuss the same question again and again.

In mail you can only read the postings from the moment you subscribed.
Once you did loose them, your knowlage base is gone.

> to give the impression that I'm burdened by the amount of mail
> generated; if so, I'd simply unsubscribe.

That is the feeling about postings in mail. In NNTP you would not feel
this way. You would say that you read fewer of the postings.

> 1.) That's a separate discussion, one you'd have to take up with the
> Gentoo devs.  You can ask if there's interested here, but I would think
> that's about as far as this mailing list could go with it.

point 3:

It would require one strong admin in the developers team, convinced
itself of the advantages and with a missionary nature.

> 2.) It's been a while since I used newsgroups, but I thought you pointed
> your newsreader to a server that had the newsgroup in question, and then
> read it from there?  If your news server doesn't have that newsgroup,
> you should ask for it?  Other than that, I can't help; as I said, it's
> been a long time since I used it.

point 4:

You think of those big news providers, that serve many groups. I think
of a gentoo owend news server, that only provides the gentoo groups,
nothing else. You subscribe directly to that gentoo server, not to the
newsserver of your provider.

> I didn't say I was "advanced".  But are you saying that using a
> newsgroup is really that different that using e-mail?  You double-click

I consider you advance if you use thunderbird and you know to use the
options of IMAP.

Al