[NTLUG:Discuss] NNTP/News access

[Rick Matthews]

bkontr at yahoo.com wrote:
>
> I don't think the protocol is the issue here, it's the
> fact that you get all of the mailing list mail in your
> inbox whether or not you are actually interested in
> all of the subjects.  With a newsgroup you can check
> the subjects you are interested in and follow the
> thread easier... all while avoiding HTML and huge
> messages.  My main peeve with mailing lists is having
> to sort through and delete the subject threads I am
> not interested in.  The other bad thing is that if you
> go on vacation or are just away from the computer for
> an extended period your inbox gets cluttered with
> cruft very quickly.  In this case, it is much easier
> and much more efficient to simply  go to a newsgroup
> and pull the subject threads you are interested in.

Excellent points! If I may add to that...

The better news clients are built with the realization that the USENET
is (among other things) multiple, concurrent streams of group 
consciousness, and they are likely to have tools that support:
- Easy selection of threads to follow
- Easy selection of threads to ignore (and it never shows up again)
- Easy selection of people to ignore (even if only temporarily), and
their posts don't show up again
- A scoring system to ensure that you see new threads that contain 
information about your interests, without you feeling obligated to 
read every post.  Many (most?) email clients do not have these
tools.

In my opinion, the email mindset is that it is meant to be personal 
(i.e. for me). If it shows up in my box it's something I need to read,
or it's something that somebody (known and trusted) thinks I need to 
read.  Spam is an exception, and so are email lists.

I think the best of both worlds (if it is easily implemented), would 
be to allow people to participate via email and/or nntp.

Rick