### The Usenet vs. mailing lists ### | |
In this writeup, I try to provide a few clues about why one would prefer to | |
use a (Usenet) news group instead of a mailing list. This is an article I | |
wrote initially to support the migration of the gopher mailing list to | |
the comp.infosystems.gopher Usenet group. | |
So, why is Usenet better than a mailing list? | |
First I have to say that "better" is probably not the correct term. | |
"different", yes. For a small project that will run over the course of a few | |
months with a bunch of people - I'd say go with a mailing list. If we're | |
talking about a subject that spans over a few years (decades even), with an | |
uncontrolled amount of subscribers, then Usenet is the way to go. | |
Myself, I value the fact that Usenet is a truly public place. When a new | |
subscriber gets the list, he can get the history of past messages right away. | |
A mailing list doesn't allow such thing (or it requires to go through a clumsy | |
web-based portal, if the mailing list provides such tool at all). | |
Resiliency: Usenet is a network of meshed NNTP servers. Should a few servers | |
go down, no big deal, nothing is lost. Should the mailing list server go down, | |
you're fucked. This gets me to another point: | |
Persistence across time. Sooner or later, the mailing list server will cease | |
business. What then? "Migrating" the users to another mailing list provider. | |
In the meantime, all past messages are lost from the internet. With Usenet, | |
this doesn't happen. | |
The killfile is also a feature that I enjoy much, and pretty much every news | |
reader implements it. Sure, you could probably emulate it with cryptic rules | |
in some mail programs, but it's a mess. | |
Separating mail from public forum. Not everyone cares about this, but I do. I | |
like to receive on my mailbox only things that I am supposed to answer. | |
Messages coming from a public forum are distracting me in times when I have | |
more essential things to attend to. | |
Spammy additions - most mailing lists like to add some ads to the messages | |
that are posted by users. I really hate that. If I post something, I want it | |
to be delivered exactly as I typed it, without additional crap. | |
Finally, I choose what I want to read (and fetch). If I'm not interested in a | |
thread, I mark it as ignored, and its messages won't even be downloaded to my | |
PC (headers only) - while with a mailing list I am forced into getting all the | |
stuff. | |
Interested? Learn more: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usenet | |
Mateusz Viste | |