minor list changes

[Tony Duell]

> Yes, a web forum would be Different and All, but at least it 
> throws away all this haggling about list traffic and MX debugging.
> A little LAMP server, a little postNuke, we could be up in minutes.
> 
> Yes, I know it would require a modern web browser.  Is this the

It would certainly get rid of me, and a fair few others, I suspect.

The reasons are simple : 

1) The major advantage of a mailing list is that you read it off-line. 
You can take as long as you need to look things up, take machines apart 
to check things, asn so (yus, I do do that to answer questions here). I 
would not want to do that if I was paying for the time (which I would be 
if it was a web-based forum).

2) None of my machines can run a modern web browser. If you want me to 
run one, then you can get me a machine, you can get me a house extension 
to house it, and you can maintain it for as long as I want to use it. I'm 
quite happy with the machines I've got, thank you. Yes, I'd miss this 
list, but I think I could live without it...

3) Web-based fora seem to attract a lot more off-topic garbage than 
mailing lists. I suspect we'd be overrun with XP questions within a week 
(or less).

4) I can keep an archive on my own machine of postings that interest me 
(read : apply to machines I'm restoring). That way I can read them at all 
times (telephone changes are generaly too high for me to dial in during 
the working day).

> Civil War re-enactor list?  Are my buttons and hardtack not
> authentic enough?  Why the emotional attraction to a mailing list
> as opposed to the web? 

It's not an emotioanl attraction. I just don't believe that a more modern 
solution is necessarily superior to that which it claims to replace in 
all cases -- which is why I use film-based cameras (for all I can see the 
advantage of digial for, say, press photography), why I use a 
command-line user interface, why I draw schematics by hand (I'll use a 
CAD system when I find one that actually _aids_ rather than hinders me), 
and why I prefre mailing lists to web fora for things like this.

-tony