On 17/11/2023 12:36, Peter 'Shaggy' Haywood wrote:
> So if the quoted text is
> long or mostly irrelevant, cut out the cruft to make things clearer and
> easier to read.
Exactly ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
--
"The great thing about Glasgow is that if there's a nuclear attack it'll
look exactly the same afterwards."

Billy Connolly

On 17.11.23 14:04, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
> On 17/11/2023 12:33, Carlos E. R. wrote:
>> On 2023-11-17 09:26, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
>>> On 16/11/2023 22:23, Nuno Silva wrote:
>>>> On 2023-11-15, Computer Nerd Kev wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> The Natural Philosopher <tnp@invalid.invalid> wrote:
>>>>>> On 15/11/2023 15:05, Joerg Lorenz wrote:
>>>>>>> Usenet is from the early days of the Internet. Younger users prefer
>>>>>>> usually "Forums".
>>>>>>>
>>>>>> Forums are also very very good, especially where a 'picture is worth
>>>>>> 1000 words'.
>>>>>
>>>>> On most forum posts I read people just post image hosting links
>>>>> like they do on Usenet. Sometimes you see that spammers have
>>>>> figured out how to post visible images but the regulars haven't.
>>>>>
>>>>> One did change their platform to Discourse and start supporting
>>>>> image hosting, but that upgrade came with lots of Javascript
>>>>> (including for lazy-loading those images) that annoys me even
>>>>> more.
>>>>>
>>>>> Forums are bad, that's why I'm here.
>>>>
>>>> How often does a webforum support threading?
>>>
>>> All web forums support threading.
>>
>> I know one that doesn't :-p
>>
>>
> I am surprised. I have never found one.

Wisenheimers and laughing stocks with fake addresses belong in my killfile.

--
"Gutta cavat lapidem." (Ovid)

On 2023-11-17 14:04, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
> On 17/11/2023 12:33, Carlos E. R. wrote:
>> On 2023-11-17 09:26, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
>>> On 16/11/2023 22:23, Nuno Silva wrote:
>>>> On 2023-11-15, Computer Nerd Kev wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> The Natural Philosopher <tnp@invalid.invalid> wrote:
>>>>>> On 15/11/2023 15:05, Joerg Lorenz wrote:
>>>>>>> Usenet is from the early days of the Internet. Younger users prefer
>>>>>>> usually "Forums".
>>>>>>>
>>>>>> Forums are also very very good, especially where a 'picture is worth
>>>>>> 1000 words'.
>>>>>
>>>>> On most forum posts I read people just post image hosting links
>>>>> like they do on Usenet. Sometimes you see that spammers have
>>>>> figured out how to post visible images but the regulars haven't.
>>>>>
>>>>> One did change their platform to Discourse and start supporting
>>>>> image hosting, but that upgrade came with lots of Javascript
>>>>> (including for lazy-loading those images) that annoys me even
>>>>> more.
>>>>>
>>>>> Forums are bad, that's why I'm here.
>>>>
>>>> How often does a webforum support threading?
>>>
>>> All web forums support threading.
>>
>> I know one that doesn't :-p
>>
>>
> I am surprised. I have never found one.

It is the support forum for Telefónica, my ISP. Posts are simply sorted
by date. This is the mode preferred by forum natives.

When I tried threaded view on other forums, it was impossible to keep
track of new or unread posts.

--
Cheers,
Carlos E.R.

The Natural Philosopher <tnp@invalid.invalid> wrote:
> On 17/11/2023 11:35, J?rg Lorenz wrote:
>> On 17.11.23 10:54, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
>>> On 17/11/2023 08:38, J?rg Lorenz wrote:
>>>> On 17.11.23 09:26, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
>>>>> On 16/11/2023 22:23, Nuno Silva wrote:
>>>>>> How often does a webforum support threading?
>>>>>
>>>>> All web forums support threading.
>>>>
>>>> That is not true. Most do not.
>>>>
>>> Without threading they would be useless
>>
>> Perhaps for *your* brainstructure but obviously not for others.
>> Most forums are moderated. Subthreads with OT discussions are eliminated
>> or separated.
>
> So they *are* threaded then?

There must be a difference in definitions of "threading" going on
here.

While most web forums can have separate threads started by the
first post, I rarely find a way to display sub-threads branching
off like you can with a tree view in most news readers (and I have
often looked hard just in case it's burried in the forum's
options). If someone starts a discussion about tint2 on a forum and
everyone starts talking about threading there instead, on web
forums a person only interested in tint2 may have a very hard time
working through all the OT posts in order to find out whether
anyone discussed tint2 at all. On Usenet it's easy to see in a
proper threaded view where the discussion branches off and skip
around that.

On really busy forums it's a nightmare. The number of times I've
given up reading through a Raspberry Pi Forum thread about a
promising topic, for example, because it just goes on for eternity
talking about something completely different and there's no certain
way to find whether anyone discussed the real topic again. Often
it's the same thing with GitHub "issues" where I'm trying to see
whether anyone found a real work-around amongst all the noise of
why issue x shouldn't be a problem in the first place.

Hence moderators might manually break up OT discussion to avoid
this, but that's a response to the limitation of not having
sub-threads, and often leaves a mess behind as well.

This is one web forum with a Usenet-like threaded view (still not
nearly as convenient as reading a newsgroup in Tin). Most that I
see don't have anything like this unless they're actually mailing
list archives/interfaces.
http://www.bttr-software.de/forum/forum.php

--
__ __
#_ < |\| |< _# | Note: I won't see posts made from Google Groups |

Carlos E. R. <robin_listas@es.invalid> wrote:
> On 2023-11-16 06:52, Computer Nerd Kev wrote:
>> Carlos E. R. <robin_listas@es.invalid> wrote:
>>> On 2023-11-15 22:34, Computer Nerd Kev wrote:
>> Anyway linking web forums to news servers is actually something I
>> asked about in news.software.nntp last month. Presumably you mean
>> where it's part of the forum configuration, but I'm interested in
>> scraping forums client-side and turning their posts into news
>> articles in a news spool, which could then be hosted over NNTP or
>> browsed directly in a news reader. From that discussion I gather
>> that this hasn't been done before. I'm not decided whether to write
>> the software for it myself or not. Keeping up with forum software
>> changes would make it an endless project.
>
> The old openSUSE web forum was linked to a private nntp server (Novell
> infraestructure). You could read or post on any of the two, and it would
> be seen on both. The forum software was vbulletin, if memory serves,
> with a custom made bridge to the nntp server (vBulletin USENET gateway,
> I see on saved old messages).
>
> Then the forum was migrated to another software (vbulletin is not
> gratis), and then to discourse, I think. The gateway could not be
> migrated, but we believe it is feasible

Yes I believe there are a few forum platforms that have/had support
for a NNTP gateway, including at least one borderline popular free
one.

But I'm not an admin, moderator, or even a frequent contributor, to
any of these forums that I'd like to read via NNTP. Of course I'm
not, I don't like web forums! So there's no way that I'm going to
sway people running a web forum to set up a NNTP gateway for my
sake, even if it might only take a bit of configuration. I'd
probably have a better argument trying to get them to set up a
mailing list interface and then use Gmane to access it via NNTP,
but I'm sure I'd get nowhere with that either.

The only practical way to do it is to not involve the forum
operators at all and just scrape the pages from my end then convert
the forum posts into something a Usenet news reader can view. So
that's the approach I'm interested in at the moment. Posting via a
news reader would be neat too, but I'd be mostly satisfied with a
read-only view.

--
__ __
#_ < |\| |< _# | Note: I won't see posts made from Google Groups |

On 2023-11-17 22:36, Computer Nerd Kev wrote:
> The Natural Philosopher <tnp@invalid.invalid> wrote:
>> On 17/11/2023 11:35, J?rg Lorenz wrote:
>>> On 17.11.23 10:54, The Natural Philosopher wrote:

....

> This is one web forum with a Usenet-like threaded view (still not
> nearly as convenient as reading a newsgroup in Tin). Most that I
> see don't have anything like this unless they're actually mailing
> list archives/interfaces.
> http://www.bttr-software.de/forum/forum.php

Yes, this is threaded, and the software is doing it very well. I'm
surprised. What software is it running, do you know?

Ah, found it!

https://github.com/auge8472/My-Little-Forum-1

On the forum.opensuse.org of several years ago, when it was running
vbulletin, threaded view was a pain, because you could not detect which
posts were new, and which you had read or not. In flat sorted (by date)
order it was clear: you had read till post 35, say, so 36 was new. You
just read them in order.

And that's the reason that many forums don't show threaded view.

--
Cheers,
Carlos E.R.

On 18 Nov 2023 07:52:30 +1000
not@telling.you.invalid (Computer Nerd Kev) wrote:

> Carlos E. R. <robin_listas@es.invalid> wrote:
> > On 2023-11-16 06:52, Computer Nerd Kev wrote:
> >> Carlos E. R. <robin_listas@es.invalid> wrote:
> >>> On 2023-11-15 22:34, Computer Nerd Kev wrote:
> >> Anyway linking web forums to news servers is actually something I
> >> asked about in news.software.nntp last month. Presumably you mean
> >> where it's part of the forum configuration, but I'm interested in
> >> scraping forums client-side and turning their posts into news
> >> articles in a news spool, which could then be hosted over NNTP or
> >> browsed directly in a news reader. From that discussion I gather
> >> that this hasn't been done before. I'm not decided whether to write
> >> the software for it myself or not. Keeping up with forum software
> >> changes would make it an endless project.
> >
> > The old openSUSE web forum was linked to a private nntp server (Novell
> > infraestructure). You could read or post on any of the two, and it would
> > be seen on both. The forum software was vbulletin, if memory serves,
> > with a custom made bridge to the nntp server (vBulletin USENET gateway,
> > I see on saved old messages).
> >
> > Then the forum was migrated to another software (vbulletin is not
> > gratis), and then to discourse, I think. The gateway could not be
> > migrated, but we believe it is feasible
>
> Yes I believe there are a few forum platforms that have/had support
> for a NNTP gateway, including at least one borderline popular free
> one.
>
> But I'm not an admin, moderator, or even a frequent contributor, to
> any of these forums that I'd like to read via NNTP. Of course I'm
> not, I don't like web forums! So there's no way that I'm going to
> sway people running a web forum to set up a NNTP gateway for my
> sake, even if it might only take a bit of configuration. I'd
> probably have a better argument trying to get them to set up a
> mailing list interface and then use Gmane to access it via NNTP,
> but I'm sure I'd get nowhere with that either.
>
> The only practical way to do it is to not involve the forum
> operators at all and just scrape the pages from my end then convert
> the forum posts into something a Usenet news reader can view. So
> that's the approach I'm interested in at the moment. Posting via a
> news reader would be neat too, but I'd be mostly satisfied with a
> read-only view.
>
> --

There is a quite good one called DFeed, which runs the D Language
forum at https://forum.dlang.org/. Nice web interface and its fast.

Dfeed is available at https://github.com/CyberShadow/DFeed, though I
had trouble compiling it myself.

--

On 17/11/2023 21:36, Computer Nerd Kev wrote:
> The Natural Philosopher <tnp@invalid.invalid> wrote:
>> On 17/11/2023 11:35, J?rg Lorenz wrote:
>>> On 17.11.23 10:54, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
>>>> On 17/11/2023 08:38, J?rg Lorenz wrote:
>>>>> On 17.11.23 09:26, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
>>>>>> On 16/11/2023 22:23, Nuno Silva wrote:
>>>>>>> How often does a webforum support threading?
>>>>>>
>>>>>> All web forums support threading.
>>>>>
>>>>> That is not true. Most do not.
>>>>>
>>>> Without threading they would be useless
>>>
>>> Perhaps for *your* brainstructure but obviously not for others.
>>> Most forums are moderated. Subthreads with OT discussions are eliminated
>>> or separated.
>>
>> So they *are* threaded then?
>
> There must be a difference in definitions of "threading" going on
> here.
>
> While most web forums can have separate threads started by the
> first post, I rarely find a way to display sub-threads branching
> off like you can with a tree view in most news readers (and I have
> often looked hard just in case it's burried in the forum's
> options). If someone starts a discussion about tint2 on a forum and
> everyone starts talking about threading there instead, on web
> forums a person only interested in tint2 may have a very hard time
> working through all the OT posts in order to find out whether
> anyone discussed tint2 at all. On Usenet it's easy to see in a
> proper threaded view where the discussion branches off and skip
> around that.
>
Oh you mean MULTI-threading.
Why didn't you say?

One of the *advantages* of forums is that there is no way to veer off
topic easily.

--
Climate is what you expect but weather is what you get.
Mark Twain

The Natural Philosopher <tnp@invalid.invalid> wrote:
> On 17/11/2023 21:36, Computer Nerd Kev wrote:
>> The Natural Philosopher <tnp@invalid.invalid> wrote:
>>> On 17/11/2023 11:35, J?rg Lorenz wrote:
>>>> On 17.11.23 10:54, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
>>>>> On 17/11/2023 08:38, J?rg Lorenz wrote:
>>>>>> On 17.11.23 09:26, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
>>>>>>> On 16/11/2023 22:23, Nuno Silva wrote:
>>>>>>>> How often does a webforum support threading?
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> All web forums support threading.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> That is not true. Most do not.
>>>>>>
>>>>> Without threading they would be useless
>>>>
>>>> Perhaps for *your* brainstructure but obviously not for others.
>>>> Most forums are moderated. Subthreads with OT discussions are eliminated
>>>> or separated.
>>>
>>> So they *are* threaded then?
>>
>> There must be a difference in definitions of "threading" going on
>> here.
>>
>> While most web forums can have separate threads started by the
>> first post, I rarely find a way to display sub-threads branching
>> off like you can with a tree view in most news readers (and I have
>> often looked hard just in case it's burried in the forum's
>> options). If someone starts a discussion about tint2 on a forum and
>> everyone starts talking about threading there instead, on web
>> forums a person only interested in tint2 may have a very hard time
>> working through all the OT posts in order to find out whether
>> anyone discussed tint2 at all. On Usenet it's easy to see in a
>> proper threaded view where the discussion branches off and skip
>> around that.
>>
> Oh you mean MULTI-threading.
> Why didn't you say?

Actually "Nuno Silva" was the one that mentioned threading as a
missing feature from forums, see the quotes (or, for that matter,
threading). I just interpreted it as what you call multi-threading,
which I'm pretty sure was as intended.

> One of the *advantages* of forums is that there is no way to veer off
> topic easily.

Do you really believe discussions don't veer way off topic all the
time on forums? You apparantly use the Raspberry Pi Forums so I
can't follow that.

Of course the discussions veer off exactly as easily on web forums,
the only difference is that it's harder to read them when they do.
Heavy moderation _might_ control it, but as unlike on Usenet the
moderation usually happens after articles are posted, that requires
moderators to jump in fast enough that things aren't already mixed
up by the time they intervene. Anyway extra workload on moderators
is hardly an *advantage*, and the OT discussions will always be
attempted regardless of how poorly designed the platform is for
displaying them.

--
__ __
#_ < |\| |< _# | Note: I won't see posts made from Google Groups |

On 2023-11-18 22:26, Computer Nerd Kev wrote:
> The Natural Philosopher <tnp@invalid.invalid> wrote:
>> On 17/11/2023 21:36, Computer Nerd Kev wrote:
>>> The Natural Philosopher <tnp@invalid.invalid> wrote:
>>>> On 17/11/2023 11:35, J?rg Lorenz wrote:
>>>>> On 17.11.23 10:54, The Natural Philosopher wrote:

....

>> One of the *advantages* of forums is that there is no way to veer off
>> topic easily.
>
> Do you really believe discussions don't veer way off topic all the
> time on forums? You apparantly use the Raspberry Pi Forums so I
> can't follow that.
>
> Of course the discussions veer off exactly as easily on web forums,
> the only difference is that it's harder to read them when they do.
> Heavy moderation _might_ control it, but as unlike on Usenet the
> moderation usually happens after articles are posted, that requires
> moderators to jump in fast enough that things aren't already mixed
> up by the time they intervene. Anyway extra workload on moderators
> is hardly an *advantage*, and the OT discussions will always be
> attempted regardless of how poorly designed the platform is for
> displaying them.

If the forum has the proper features, the moderators can detach the
subthread to a new thread of its own, even move it to a different room.
There is no time limit.

--
Cheers,
Carlos E.R.

On 18/11/2023 21:26, Computer Nerd Kev wrote:
> The Natural Philosopher <tnp@invalid.invalid> wrote:
>> On 17/11/2023 21:36, Computer Nerd Kev wrote:
>>> The Natural Philosopher <tnp@invalid.invalid> wrote:
>>>> On 17/11/2023 11:35, J?rg Lorenz wrote:
>>>>> On 17.11.23 10:54, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
>>>>>> On 17/11/2023 08:38, J?rg Lorenz wrote:
>>>>>>> On 17.11.23 09:26, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
>>>>>>>> On 16/11/2023 22:23, Nuno Silva wrote:
>>>>>>>>> How often does a webforum support threading?
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> All web forums support threading.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> That is not true. Most do not.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>> Without threading they would be useless
>>>>>
>>>>> Perhaps for *your* brainstructure but obviously not for others.
>>>>> Most forums are moderated. Subthreads with OT discussions are eliminated
>>>>> or separated.
>>>>
>>>> So they *are* threaded then?
>>>
>>> There must be a difference in definitions of "threading" going on
>>> here.
>>>
>>> While most web forums can have separate threads started by the
>>> first post, I rarely find a way to display sub-threads branching
>>> off like you can with a tree view in most news readers (and I have
>>> often looked hard just in case it's burried in the forum's
>>> options). If someone starts a discussion about tint2 on a forum and
>>> everyone starts talking about threading there instead, on web
>>> forums a person only interested in tint2 may have a very hard time
>>> working through all the OT posts in order to find out whether
>>> anyone discussed tint2 at all. On Usenet it's easy to see in a
>>> proper threaded view where the discussion branches off and skip
>>> around that.
>>>
>> Oh you mean MULTI-threading.
>> Why didn't you say?
>
> Actually "Nuno Silva" was the one that mentioned threading as a
> missing feature from forums, see the quotes (or, for that matter,
> threading). I just interpreted it as what you call multi-threading,
> which I'm pretty sure was as intended.
>
>> One of the *advantages* of forums is that there is no way to veer off
>> topic easily.
>
> Do you really believe discussions don't veer way off topic all the
> time on forums? You apparantly use the Raspberry Pi Forums so I
> can't follow that.
>
Not really. My first response to an issue I don't understand is to
google it. That often takes me to a forum, but I am not an active member
of any. In general that gets the answer I want, although in many cases
it's an answer that applied to a release ten years ago and not to the
current software and hardware.

Then I try here.

It is a different audience with a different knowledge set. Often it
comes up trumps. Sometimes it hasn't a clue.

> Of course the discussions veer off exactly as easily on web forums,
> the only difference is that it's harder to read them when they do.
> Heavy moderation _might_ control it, but as unlike on Usenet the
> moderation usually happens after articles are posted, that requires
> moderators to jump in fast enough that things aren't already mixed
> up by the time they intervene. Anyway extra workload on moderators
> is hardly an *advantage*, and the OT discussions will always be
> attempted regardless of how poorly designed the platform is for
> displaying them.
>
Many of those fora carry advertising to pay for moderation. You get what
you pay for.

In any case its all just opinions and bollocks. There is no One True Way
to run the world, just a hodgepodge of ad hoc solutions, and in general
people who think there is, and they are its custodians, are amongst the
more dangerous people in the world today.

--
"When one man dies it's a tragedy. When thousands die it's statistics."

Josef Stalin

On 19/11/2023 12:19, Carlos E. R. wrote:
> On 2023-11-18 22:26, Computer Nerd Kev wrote:
>> The Natural Philosopher <tnp@invalid.invalid> wrote:
>>> On 17/11/2023 21:36, Computer Nerd Kev wrote:
>>>> The Natural Philosopher <tnp@invalid.invalid> wrote:
>>>>> On 17/11/2023 11:35, J?rg Lorenz wrote:
>>>>>> On 17.11.23 10:54, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
>
> ...
>
>>> One of the *advantages* of forums is that there is no way to veer off
>>> topic easily.
>>
>> Do you really believe discussions don't veer way off topic all the
>> time on forums? You apparantly use the Raspberry Pi Forums so I
>> can't follow that.
>>
>> Of course the discussions veer off exactly as easily on web forums,
>> the only difference is that it's harder to read them when they do.
>> Heavy moderation _might_ control it, but as unlike on Usenet the
>> moderation usually happens after articles are posted, that requires
>> moderators to jump in fast enough that things aren't already mixed
>> up by the time they intervene. Anyway extra workload on moderators
>> is hardly an *advantage*, and the OT discussions will always be
>> attempted regardless of how poorly designed the platform is for
>> displaying them.
>
> If the forum has the proper features, the moderators can detach the
> subthread to a new thread of its own, even move it to a different room.
> There is no time limit.
>
Yes, and on the few fora I have joined in the past that is exactly what
happened

--
Ideas are more powerful than guns. We would not let our enemies have
guns, why should we let them have ideas?

Josef Stalin

Carlos E. R. <robin_listas@es.invalid> wrote:
> On 2023-11-18 22:26, Computer Nerd Kev wrote:
>> Of course the discussions veer off exactly as easily on web forums,
>> the only difference is that it's harder to read them when they do.
>> Heavy moderation _might_ control it, but as unlike on Usenet the
>> moderation usually happens after articles are posted, that requires
>> moderators to jump in fast enough that things aren't already mixed
>> up by the time they intervene. Anyway extra workload on moderators
>> is hardly an *advantage*, and the OT discussions will always be
>> attempted regardless of how poorly designed the platform is for
>> displaying them.
>
> If the forum has the proper features, the moderators can detach the
> subthread to a new thread of its own, even move it to a different room.
> There is no time limit.

However if they're slow to do that then things become, as I said,
mixed up. Before the threads are separated, people wanting to
reply to both the original topic and the OT discussion include both
in the same post. Then a moderator would need to separate out bits
of the individual posts themselves, which they rarely do so you end
up with a fragmented discussion in the new branched-off thread,
then that thread only makes sense if you were reading everything
before it was forked off.

But my point really is that it's extra work for the moderators and
hence whether or not it _can_ be done, it usually isn't done at
all. On Usenet the sub-threads happen automatically (some posts
from clueless Google Groups users excepted) - a vast improvement
regardless of what half-hearted works arounds web forums might have
implemented.

--
__ __
#_ < |\| |< _# | Note: I won't see posts made from Google Groups |

On 2023-11-19 21:46, Computer Nerd Kev wrote:
> Carlos E. R. <robin_listas@es.invalid> wrote:
>> On 2023-11-18 22:26, Computer Nerd Kev wrote:
>>> Of course the discussions veer off exactly as easily on web forums,
>>> the only difference is that it's harder to read them when they do.
>>> Heavy moderation _might_ control it, but as unlike on Usenet the
>>> moderation usually happens after articles are posted, that requires
>>> moderators to jump in fast enough that things aren't already mixed
>>> up by the time they intervene. Anyway extra workload on moderators
>>> is hardly an *advantage*, and the OT discussions will always be
>>> attempted regardless of how poorly designed the platform is for
>>> displaying them.
>>
>> If the forum has the proper features, the moderators can detach the
>> subthread to a new thread of its own, even move it to a different room.
>> There is no time limit.
>
> However if they're slow to do that then things become, as I said,
> mixed up. Before the threads are separated, people wanting to
> reply to both the original topic and the OT discussion include both
> in the same post. Then a moderator would need to separate out bits
> of the individual posts themselves, which they rarely do so you end
> up with a fragmented discussion in the new branched-off thread,
> then that thread only makes sense if you were reading everything
> before it was forked off.
>
> But my point really is that it's extra work for the moderators and
> hence whether or not it _can_ be done, it usually isn't done at
> all. On Usenet the sub-threads happen automatically (some posts
> from clueless Google Groups users excepted) - a vast improvement
> regardless of what half-hearted works arounds web forums might have
> implemented.

Well, some sites have very active moderators that love to yield the axe :-P

--
Cheers,
Carlos E.R.

The Natural Philosopher <tnp@invalid.invalid> wrote:
> On 18/11/2023 21:26, Computer Nerd Kev wrote:
>> The Natural Philosopher <tnp@invalid.invalid> wrote:
>>> One of the *advantages* of forums is that there is no way to veer off
>>> topic easily.
>>
>> Do you really believe discussions don't veer way off topic all the
>> time on forums? You apparantly use the Raspberry Pi Forums so I
>> can't follow that.
>>
> Not really. My first response to an issue I don't understand is to
> google it. That often takes me to a forum, but I am not an active member
> of any. In general that gets the answer I want, although in many cases
> it's an answer that applied to a release ten years ago and not to the
> current software and hardware.

I'm often the same, but I find a result where someone asked exactly
my question, then they start talking about something else in the
third post, and then do I spend half an hour reading five pages of
posts to see whether it went back on topic? Usually I word-search
them for key phrases instead, but that isn't entirely reliable.
I might later discover a link back to that same thread which I'd
written off as useless and there was my answer all along. With RPi
stuff I've usually been looking for rather obscure info about
high-speed I/O and GPU programming, so maybe the threads I view are
a slightly different crowd.

>> Of course the discussions veer off exactly as easily on web forums,
>> the only difference is that it's harder to read them when they do.
>> Heavy moderation _might_ control it, but as unlike on Usenet the
>> moderation usually happens after articles are posted, that requires
>> moderators to jump in fast enough that things aren't already mixed
>> up by the time they intervene. Anyway extra workload on moderators
>> is hardly an *advantage*, and the OT discussions will always be
>> attempted regardless of how poorly designed the platform is for
>> displaying them.
>>
> Many of those fora carry advertising to pay for moderation. You get what
> you pay for.

That's a point, I usually assume they're all run by volunteers. The
RPi forums seem like they would be an exception, yet at least the
RPi engineers refer to posting there as entirely a spare-time
activity.

--
__ __
#_ < |\| |< _# | Note: I won't see posts made from Google Groups |

On 19/11/2023 20:49, Carlos E. R. wrote:

> Well, some sites have very active moderators that love to yield the axe :-P
>
Er...WIELD the axe...Shirley...¿?

--
"Socialist governments traditionally do make a financial mess. They
always run out of other people's money. It's quite a characteristic of them"

Margaret Thatcher

On 2023-11-20 01:06, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
> On 19/11/2023 20:49, Carlos E. R. wrote:
>
>> Well, some sites have very active moderators that love to yield the
>> axe :-P
>>
> Er...WIELD the axe...Shirley...¿?

Oops :-)

--
Cheers,
Carlos E.R.