Re: Moving cygwin discussions to Usenet? (e.g., alt.os.cygwin)

["Michael B. Parker" <MBParker at Cytex dot com>]

Regarding the thread "Moving to Usenet?"
(www.cygwin.com/ml/cygwin/2000-07/msg00275.html) (which I found by via
www.google.com/search?q=site:cygwin.com+usenet to see who else also wanted
discussions on Usenet):

I WILL FIRMLY 2ND Jonas Jensen's good suggestion
(http://www.cygwin.com/ml/cygwin/2000-07/msg00206.html) for
THE NEED TO MOVE DISCUSSIONS TO USENET, instead of, else in addition to, the
present Mailing lists (www.cygwin.com/lists.html).

While the mailing lists are an impressive and honorable effort, one doesn't
want to have to sign up and manage a whole huge email list to just involved
in a few issues.  It's very off-putting, a waste of bandwidth, and only
cost-effective if you're really involved.   While it might be okay for those
already heavy involved (so they might not want to change anything), it
definitely puts off newcomers, probably hundreds or thousands of people who
would otherwise get involved (and so may not be hear to speak up).  To avoid
the flood of emails I'd get if I'd subscribe, I'm having to read the EMAIL
list with a WEB browser, yet reply via email; that wasn't the intended use;
but I would never want to store, sort thru, thread, and search the flood of
emails I would get if I subscribed; Google is much better for that.  And for
the millions of users on web email as Yahoo and Hotmail, such advanced
filtering and threading of email typically isn't even possible, even if the
user had the space to do it.

Email lists CAN work for an initial small number of very involved people,
but not for a large crowd who are mostly loosely involved.

And, in response to Chris Faylor (CGF@Cygnus.com)'s concern that
"sources.redhat.com does not have the software, the capacity, or the
manpower to operate a news server" ("However, if you think that this is a
good idea, please do look into
setting up something like an alt.os.cygwin newsgroup"), with today's tricks,
MOVING TO USENET MAY NOT BE AS DIFFICULT AS IT APPEARS.
http://groups.google.com allows users to read and post to Usenet without
subscribing to anything (so simple to use and no load on the source
servers).  All you'd have to do is to find someone to host the master copy
of the Usenet group, and you'd be set.   I'm not experienced with hosting or
starting a Usenet group, but if you're already (thankfully) going to the
trouble to archive this email list on www.cygwin.com (which also DOES take
the actual traffic of readers), it wouldn't seem that much harder to set up
a real server.

However, though I don't know if he'll do it, MY GOOD FRIEND Matt Bartley
(see CC), who has extensive Usenet experience, MIGHT BE INTERESTED in
helping with this, since he loves Linux & Unix, and something like
www.cygwin.com which, clearly and strongly, brings this wonderful Unix stuff
into the Windows world should make him very happy.

AND I WILL DONATE USE OF AN EXCHANGE SERVER for this purpose, if someone
with Usenet experience will set it up.  (Unless it's enormous bandwidth with
no funding for it (which doesn't seem likely if the postings which can be
fed to other Usenet servers for reading)).   At Cytex, we're willing to
donate Windows hosting for those who will help get it working.  See
www.Cytex.com/Hosting/4Help for other offers.

-Mike Parker, www.Cytex.com/go/MBParker/Seeking 

Aside: The only apparent advantage of mailing lists that I see offhand that
it can better hide the email addresses from spammers (as www.cygwin.com/ml
is attempting to do by the email address expansions (e.g., "cygwin at
sourceware dot cygnus dot com") in the web archive above), but since once
the spammers have gotten your email address once it's all over (since they
share lists), I think a much better approach is to instead focus on methods
to filter your email from spammers, possibly by something like a service
which requires a user, in response to their first email attempt, to register
their address with you (which they (a human) can easily do via a web form,
but would take way to much time for a spammer to do for each address).
Maybe someone's heard of such a thing?

Michael B. Parker, MIT '89 
* Computer & IT Consulting ...from Coding to Design to Setup & Repair.
Since 1994.  See www.Cytex.com 
* High-Tech?  Romantic?  Making a difference?  --Want some tips & secrets?
See this month's www.Cytex.com/go/MBParker/Seeking 

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