The forum or the Mailing List

General discussion about Origami, Papers, Diagramming, ...

Which do you prefer/ use more

The origami forum
11
92%
The origami Mailing List
1
8%
 
Total votes: 12

Joseph Wu
Senior Member
Posts: 443
Joined: April 18th, 2005, 7:27 pm
Location: Vancouver, BC, Canada
Contact:

Post by Joseph Wu »

No. It predates my involvement by a few years.
User avatar
T
Junior Member
Posts: 119
Joined: October 9th, 2004, 12:02 pm
Contact:

Post by T »

so was there one person who started it?
Joseph Wu
Senior Member
Posts: 443
Joined: April 18th, 2005, 7:27 pm
Location: Vancouver, BC, Canada
Contact:

Post by Joseph Wu »

Sort of. Why don't you read the first few messages so you can see what happened yourself...
User avatar
T
Junior Member
Posts: 119
Joined: October 9th, 2004, 12:02 pm
Contact:

Post by T »

interesting
thanks
User avatar
Brimstone
Buddha
Posts: 1729
Joined: November 23rd, 2004, 3:59 am
Location: Colombia, South America
Contact:

Post by Brimstone »

origami_8 wrote:... I´m no member of the mailing list, so...
I was really curious of knowing if there were anybody on these forums that was not a memebr of the O-list and there you go
User avatar
origami_8
Administrator
Posts: 4371
Joined: November 8th, 2004, 12:02 am
Location: Austria
Contact:

Post by origami_8 »

Brimstone wrote:I was really curious of knowing if there were anybody on these forums that was not a memebr of the O-list and there you go
Too late, now I am...
User avatar
wolf
Forum Sensei
Posts: 733
Joined: June 7th, 2003, 7:05 pm
Location: Not locatable in this Universe
Contact:

Post by wolf »

TheRealChris wrote:a point for the mailing list is, that it's easier to use. you don't have to open your browser, just your email client. with all the emails you got, you also get your origami emails, and can answer them. all internet users can use their email client but not necessarily all of them can also use an online forum.
Not always true. If your email system doesn't have a web-based mail client, sometimes it can be difficult to access your email. It can be very hard to find a public computer with a secure shell access, whereas browsers are commonplace.

Then there's the problem of (not) knowing when you've not got mail, which happens whenever your mail server has a serious fit. Then you'll go on wondering for days why it's so quiet on the mailing list. Undeliverable mails often bug the mailing list administrators to no end too. :D

Mail confirmation has its advantages. Apart from its main purpose of stopping trolls, the added "hassle" also does appear to encourage people to put more thought and effort into their posts, instead of one-liners and "me too!"s.

It's two different technologies anyhow, so it's difficult and maybe even pointless to compare the two. The mailing list and Usenet were the only sources of online origami information available in the 90s. Sure, we had lynx and mosaic, but there were hardly any websites back then, and almost all of them allowed only passive HTML. The mailing list archives are worth delving into - lots of tiny gems of info over there; plus you get to see how young and reckless we were back in those days. Every advertised origami model was a shiny new toy to drool over and play with. :P

Today, I find the forum format a lot easier to handle than email (where sometimes you want to keep work and play separate); there's threading, archiving, private messaging all in the same place, and best of all, it doesn't cause your mailbox to explode. :D
TheRealChris
Moderator
Posts: 1874
Joined: May 17th, 2003, 1:01 pm
Location: Germany

Post by TheRealChris »

Not always true. If your email system doesn't have a web-based mail client, sometimes it can be difficult to access your email. It can be very hard to find a public computer with a secure shell access, whereas browsers are commonplace.
I've installed lots and lots and lots of systems, and the only point, where the email provider doesn't support web-access where, when we installed email servers for business use. and even those server solutions (e.g. exhance servers) could mostly be configured including web-access (e.g. web-exchange). but we're talking about private people using the internet access for accessing their private origami stuff, aren't we? I mean, the people, that are not able to sign up for a free email service (like gmx, gmail or yahoo) won't ever come to the situation to access their business email account with a web interface. and those, who are able to, mainly won't use their business email adress for private matters (not regarding to the fact, that it's in many companies forbidden to do that).

Today, I find the forum format a lot easier to handle than email (where sometimes you want to keep work and play separate); there's threading, archiving, private messaging all in the same place, and best of all, it doesn't cause your mailbox to explode.
you've ever done telephone-support? ;)
you obviously know how to handle things, but most people only know how to open up their standard programs. that's what I meant. as long as you know how to handle things, there's no need for disussing, but you should keep an eye onto those people, that aren't that common with computer things.
besides: you can set up filters (within offline email clients and web email) to sort the incoming emails. it's somehow like threading, isn't it? :D but that would be to complicated to be done by a novice user.


Christian
User avatar
T
Junior Member
Posts: 119
Joined: October 9th, 2004, 12:02 pm
Contact:

Post by T »

How many ppl in totaL are subscribed to the mailing list compared to the 510 members on the forum?
Joseph Wu
Senior Member
Posts: 443
Joined: April 18th, 2005, 7:27 pm
Location: Vancouver, BC, Canada
Contact:

Post by Joseph Wu »

It varies. Average is between 600 and 700.
User avatar
T
Junior Member
Posts: 119
Joined: October 9th, 2004, 12:02 pm
Contact:

Post by T »

So the mailing list has the majority, interesting.
User avatar
origamimasterjared
Buddha
Posts: 1670
Joined: August 13th, 2004, 6:25 pm
Contact:

Post by origamimasterjared »

The O-list has been around for sixteen years, though.

This forum, two.
Joseph Wu
Senior Member
Posts: 443
Joined: April 18th, 2005, 7:27 pm
Location: Vancouver, BC, Canada
Contact:

Post by Joseph Wu »

Like your original comparison, this conclusion that the list has the "majority" means very little. The numbers themselves don't tell the whole story.

List membership is by email address. Some people subscribe using multiple addresses in order to post from different locations. Others cancel their email address but don't bother to unsubscribe from the list, so they are still counted as being subscribed. So there will always be some officially subscribed people who aren't really subscribed. There are also some people who read the archives, but don't actually subscribe to the list. Are you beginning to see why the count means almost nothing?

The forum is similar. I suspect that many of the 500+ "members" don't regularly check the forum, and that some have probably not come back after the initial period of checking it out. And, there are always those who just read the forum without subscribing. Actually, with the list, the membership numbers are probably a little more accurate than the membership numbers of the forum because you can be fairly sure that most subscribers are actually receiving all of the messages.
User avatar
T
Junior Member
Posts: 119
Joined: October 9th, 2004, 12:02 pm
Contact:

Post by T »

Ok,

perhaps my judgement of comparing numbers was wrong.
Joseph Wu
Senior Member
Posts: 443
Joined: April 18th, 2005, 7:27 pm
Location: Vancouver, BC, Canada
Contact:

Post by Joseph Wu »

I'm not trying to pick on you, but your whole premise of comparing the list to the forum is flawed. They are two different beasts, serving two similar but different purposes, so any direct comparison of which is better is really a question of personal choice. It's perfectly valid for someone to say they like one more than the other, but it doesn't make sense to say that one is inherently better than the other.
Post Reply