To everyone,

There are different agendas and interests in this forum. As we approach year 2000, the rate of email notifications are rising, and I am not interested in reading all responses. If I see Rick has something to say and I am interested then it would be very HELPFUL if he would put his name in the beginning of the "Subject Line". Just a simple tip to by pass some of the feuding exchanges. Any one agree?

-dj

-- Anonymous, June 18, 1999

Answers

This really should be a news group so additional comments are clearly highlighted.

But if you are getting E-mail its your own fault. Don't check the notify button.

Also, don't give your real name and E-mail. What do you expect?

-- Anonymous, June 18, 1999

Actually - (beyond what you said) Greenspun's design of this format makes discussion very cumbersome. This has been buggin me for awhile. I don't know HOW others manage to easily work with several different answers debated within a single thread - - without it becoming a totally unwieldy mess in the process. I for one, tend to just drop out of the 'discussion'. The design is not user-friendly at all.

BTW- That is not Rick's fault. I WISH he could find a new one though, - much better. I'm sure they're out there. But who has the Time, Right? This Greenspun design is NOT a good one.

[I can say that most confidently - as I participated for many years in well-designed (eg: *Prodigy) discussion formats/forums - that allowed one to answer EACH individual post- separately WITHIN a thread - so sideline conversations of greater focus could be more easily addressed. And the level of intelligent repartee increased QUITE exponentially... Oh Lord - it was great. Sure wish this forum's conversational format could could be redesigned - or I could find a leading edge one ON TOPIC that would make for greater inter-personal group focus.]

Anyone KWIM ... where to find one maybe?? If so -email us please?? (thanks)

-- Anonymous, June 18, 1999

Given the large number of participants it would be very easy to get enough votes to make euy2k into a newsgroup. Web based discussion groups are clunky because they try to emulate a nntp. Just like laying out a newspaper is clunky if attempted in a word processor. But then most people seem to think the internet is the web and email and a news reader is too difficult to set up, or just they don't have a news reader on the office computer or the necessary ports are blocked by the administartor...

oh well

-- Anonymous, June 20, 1999

I've evaluated many discussion boards and software. Each has strengths and drawbacks. The best thing about the Greenspun model is that it's web based, and at the same time allows for email notifications. More importantly is that there's now nearly 5000 messages in the database, and that (thanks to Critt Jarvis' earlier efforts) there is a search engine that allows anyone to do a key word search of the forum archives. Also, the software/database has some flexibility on presentation format (what the end user sees).

At this point, what you see is what you get, I'm afraid. For those of you who would like to get email notifications only on specific topics or from specific individuals, may I recommend that you consider making use of the filtering available in your email software? I'll try to do a bit of tweaking on the forum index to make it obvious who initiated a particular thread.

-- Anonymous, June 20, 1999

Rick - you wrote: "I'll try to do a bit of tweaking on the forum index to make it obvious who initiated a particular thread."

That should be do-able. The TB2000 site has it and it is also a Greenspun board.

Here are a few thread titles - which contain the poster's name - I just cut and pasted:

remember your pets while preparing for y2k (Y2k aware mike, y2k aware mike @ conservation .com, 1999-06-20)

Do your preparations and let the Lord lead you inhow you respond to y2k (Also Happy Fathers Day ) (y2k aware mike, y2k aware mike @ conservation . com, 1999-06-20)

PA to hold "town meeting" 6/30, satellite broadcast (Shivani Arjuna, S Arjuna@aol.com, 1999-06-20)

...and propane accessories (persistant cookie, in@my.browser, 1999-06- 20)

BEFORE YOU BUY SHORTS AND T BILLS: other things to consider when hastily making your Y2K preparations (Stan Faryna, info@giglobal.com, 1999-06-20)

-- Anonymous, June 20, 1999