Message-ID: <009a01c0fcea$347c92e0$cc08e289@mpaul>
From: "Matthias Paul" <Matthias DOT Paul AT post DOT rwth-aachen DOT de>
To: <opendos AT delorie DOT com>
References: <001401c0fbfc$0eca8e60$75822a40 AT dbcooper>
Subject: Re: New DR-DOS Club and eGroup
Date: Sun, 24 Jun 2001 22:13:04 +0200
Organization: University of Technology, RWTH Aachen, Germany
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Reply-To: opendos AT delorie DOT com

On 2001-06-23, Patrick Moran wrote:

> Leaves I have started a new Club and Group at Yahoo. I have been
> having a lot of problems with trying to give people links to
> follow for software related to DRI. Links are broken, sites
> and software have disappeared.

Hm, I hope not to sound too negative. I appreciate any DRI
related activism -- in fact, we would need much more of it!

But still, why donīt you point them to Florianīs http://www.drdos.org
or Christophīs http://www.drdos.net? (Well, my site is still
around as well, but many external links on the OpenDOS page
are broken and the info has not been updated. This will remain
so for "historic reasons" - I would like to add new pages
but I donīt find the time...)

Personally I have a problem with Yahoo! groups for several
reasons:

- It is very difficult to configure per email (at least last
  time I tried a couple of months ago), and the web interface
  is confusing and slow at best. Well, I donīt like to
  be dependent on a graphical web browser anyway, because
  it does not allow me to work offline.

- Yahoo asks all kind of privacy info to join a group.
  I am not going to give more info to someone anonymous
  (and commercial!) than I like to.

- By joining them you declare that they can do whatever
  they what to do with the contents and thereby they
  undergo common copyright laws, which are maintained
  in most individually or university funded newsgroups
  and mailing lists...

Well, I think that DJ Delorie has done a great job in
keeping this forum open and up for more than four years
now and it does not look as if he would plan to abandon it.

Traffic has been very low or quite off-topic recently,
but I donīt see this changing if everyone has to join
five or more DR-DOS related groups and chats instead
of one, and check dozends of websites. So, why *donīt*
we all join *one* forum (preferably this one, if DJ
does not plan to abandon it) and refer anyone interested
in joining this forum as well?

The bottom line is: What is the advantage to have
two instead of one mailing lists dealing with the
same subject? Donīt you think we should join forces
instead of cast outselfs in the winds? Pat, I wish
many people will join your group, but do you think
that the audience will be different from that in
this group? If so, why donīt we come together in
one forum?

Please get this as constructive criticism.

Greetings,

 Matthias

BTW. Something that I like to see improved:

Old logs of this group should be made available
for download somewhere from DJīs site. Preferably
as ASCII text packed in monthly .ZIP files.
This would allow to browse the stuff offline.
DJ, would do you think?

-- 

Matthias Paul, Ubierstrasse 28, D-50321 Bruehl, Germany
<mailto:Matthias DOT Paul AT post DOT rwth-aachen DOT de>; <mailto:mpaul AT drdos DOT org>
http://www.uni-bonn.de/~uzs180/mpdokeng.html; http://mpaul.drdos.org