You are STILL welcome to the Migreens Forum!

greenspun.com : LUSENET : migreens (michigan greens) : One Thread

A hearty welcome to one and all!

This is the LUSENET forum software/format, created by Phil Greenspun (no relation to Green Party that I know of). Phil and I are offering a $500 reward for the first *really* funny Greens PUN that plays on the Green Party, Phil's name, and at least two other unrelated concepts. ("Real Funniness" to be determined by the laughter decibels:duration relational constant, using randomly-selected subjects.)

Seriously, this IS the LUSENET format, which has proven very useful for a great diversity of organizations, interest groups, etc.; check it out: http://greenspun.com/bboard/

It has both advantages and disadvantages relative to the USENET hierarchical-threading format. I think that the advantages outweigh the disadvantages, by far. It also has big advantages over other web-based messaging/grouptalk systems; the biggest one being that whole (long) threads are accessible at ONE CLICK, rather than the tedium of clicking each *individual* post and waiting for it to come up (and come to find it is some moron saying "Yo! Jerry!" -- and that's all). Honest, if you spend even a little time with this format, you will probably come to appreciate the qualities LUSENET has that egroups.com and other fora formats do NOT have.

One HUGE advantage over both USENET and LISTSERV formats is the persistence of posts... which means that if you say something *really* stupid and pompous, your words remain fixed prominently in cyberspace, for all to see, in perpetuity, rather than disappearing into oblivion. Seriously, post persistence can be a big advantage, when posts and topic-threads are substantive, and when related posts are grouped in a coherent way. It becomes possible for anyone (and especially newcomers) to review and get up to speed with a topic quickly and surely. It is also possible to reference older threads with a URL, which will take the viewer direct to the page with all the posts on that thread; vis:

http://greenspun.com/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg.tcl?msg_id=003ZpC

........ now, that happens to be a thread from the Anarchy group titled "Why Life Sucks", a topic on which most of us would have a great deal to contribute; I would have used a URL referring to a Migreens Forum thread, except that there ARE none, since I am now composing the FIRST post on the FIRST thread -- not yet in existence until I hit SUBMIT. My point is that one can maintain one's own list of key/significant/"juicy"/whatever threads, and then reference them as need be (wheel-reinvention not necessary; just send folks back to the old thread(s))... "Mark, we had a couple of really good discussions on that back in the spring, and we covered most of the stuff you are asking about; please see: http://greenspun/blah-d-blah-1 http://greenspun/blah-d-blah-2"

It is true that "post persistence" obtains also on egroups, and on USENET if one goes to one of the big USENET archive sites. However this theoretical capability is not of much practical use because the posts are not available as both *coherent* AND *readily-accessible* groups. They exist as a welter of separate posts that must be dealt with individually; if any conversational continuity and coherence is to become evident, it is at the cost of someone (YOU) tediously pasting the items together again... ug. As a practical matter, it just does not work. Hence it is AS THOUGH all old posts go into the bit-shreader, never to be seen again. With LUSENET, threads of related posts are all on the same page, which can help us ensure that we are in fact All On The Same Page. Are We Now On The Same Page?

Here is another example from the anarchy group, this time a little meatier (to illustrate this format in more of its glory):

http://greenspun.com/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg.tcl?msg_id=0001hb

......see? It is pretty neat.

I hereby suggest that we move migreens@egroups.com HERE, to LUSENET. This is only a suggestion, natch. Further, if someone else would like to create the Migreens Forum on LUSENET (avoiding association with reactionary, greenish-brown thought criminals such as you-know-who), they would be very welcome to do so. It took me all of 5 minutes to set this one up. I DO suggest that all of you give this thing an experimental try, just to get the feel for it, and see if maybe you would like it...... (I think you will!)

-- A (as in "A is A" -- ayn rand)

-- A (aelewis@provide.net), December 05, 2000

Answers

Response to Welcome to the Migreens Forum!

HEREWITH, the above post with URLs converted into hotlinks. Hotlink URLs can be embedded in messages; all you need to do is know a LITTLE html (learnable in about 30 seconds); will explain to anyone who is interested.

-----------------------

A hearty welcome to one and all!

This is the LUSENET forum software/format, created by Phil Greenspun (no relation to Green Party that I know of). Phil and I are offering a $500 reward for the first *really* funny Greens PUN that plays on the Green Party, Phil's name, and at least two other unrelated concepts. ("Real Funniness" to be determined by the laughter decibels:duration relational constant, using randomly-selected subjects.)

Seriously, this IS the LUSENET format, which has proven very useful for a great diversity of organizations, interest groups, etc.; check it out: http://greenspun.com/bboard/

It has both advantages and disadvantages relative to the USENET hierarchical-threading format. I think that the advantages outweigh the disadvantages, by far. It also has big advantages over other web-based messaging/grouptalk systems; the biggest one being that whole (long) threads are accessible at ONE CLICK, rather than the tedium of clicking each *individual* post and waiting for it to come up (and come to find it is some moron saying "Yo! Jerry!" -- and that's all). Honest, if you spend even a little time with this format, you will probably come to appreciate the qualities LUSENET has that egroups.com and other fora formats do NOT have.

One HUGE advantage over both USENET and LISTSERV formats is the persistence of posts... which means that if you say something *really* stupid and pompous, your words remain fixed prominently in cyberspace, for all to see, in perpetuity, rather than disappearing into oblivion. Seriously, post persistence can be a big advantage, when posts and topic-threads are substantive, and when related posts are grouped in a coherent way. It becomes possible for anyone (and especially newcomers) to review and get up to speed with a topic quickly and surely. It is also possible to reference older threads with a URL, which will take the viewer direct to the page with all the posts on that thread; vis:

http://greenspun.com/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg.tcl?msg_id=003ZpC

........ now, that happens to be a thread from the Anarchy group titled "Why Life Sucks", a topic on which most of us would have a great deal to contribute; I would have used a URL referring to a Migreens Forum thread, except that there ARE none, since I am now composing the FIRST post on the FIRST thread -- not yet in existence until I hit SUBMIT. My point is that one can maintain one's own list of key/significant/"juicy"/whatever threads, and then reference them as need be (wheel-reinvention not necessary; just send folks back to the old thread(s))... "Mark, we had a couple of really good discussions on that back in the spring, and we covered most of the stuff you are asking about; please see: http://greenspun/blah-d-blah-1 http://greenspun/blah-d-blah-2"

It is true that "post persistence" obtains also on egroups, and on USENET if one goes to one of the big USENET archive sites. However this theoretical capability is not of much practical use because the posts are not available as both *coherent* AND *readily-accessible* groups. They exist as a welter of separate posts that must be dealt with individually; if any conversational continuity and coherence is to become evident, it is at the cost of someone (YOU) tediously pasting the items together again... ug. As a practical matter, it just does not work. Hence it is AS THOUGH all old posts go into the bit-shreader, never to be seen again. With LUSENET, threads of related posts are all on the same page, which can help us ensure that we are in fact All On The Same Page. Are We Now On The Same Page?

Here is another example from the anarchy group, this time a little meatier (to illustrate this format in more of its glory):

http://greenspun.com/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg.tcl?msg_id=0001hb

......see? It is pretty neat.

I hereby suggest that we move migreens@egroups.com HERE, to LUSENET. This is only a suggestion, natch. Further, if someone else would like to create the Migreens Forum on LUSENET (avoiding association with reactionary, greenish-brown thought criminals such as you-know-who), they would be very welcome to do so. It took me all of 5 minutes to set this one up. I DO suggest that all of you give this thing an experimental try, just to get the feel for it, and see if maybe you would like it...... (I think you will!)



-- A (aelewis@provide.net), December 05, 2000.


Response to the above

-- Alan (aelewis@provide.net), June 13, 2001.

Yet ANOTHER response to the above

-- Alan (aelewis@provide.net), June 13, 2001.

Moderation questions? read the FAQ