I’ve been a reasonably happy participant in Suse newsgroups since at least
9.3. I found them useful, the participants were usually helpful, the
newsreaders were fast and snappy, and and most of the time we weren’t over
moderated.
Since we’ve moved to newsgroups that are really web forums with nntp feeds I
feel things are being handled in a way that clearly treats nntp users as
second class users.
The first problem is the incessant closing and moving of threads, despite
the fact this breaks nntp threading. It certainly doesn’t seem like it
concerns people moving threads that this is highly annoying, or that it
makes responding to people’s posts more difficult and time consuming.
Please please please moderate your thread closing activity. People post in
what looks like the appropriate newsgroup according to the name of the
group, and by and large are not much off topic. If they are, a gentle
reminder that discussion of network interface cards is best done in, for
example,opensuse.org.help.network-internet may be more effective should
suffice.
We certainly don’t need to constantly move and close threads, breaking nntp
threading. And keep in mind that if we want to give people more guidance
about which newsgroup to post to, perhaps short, periodic posts that
announce which newsgroup is most appropriate would be helpful.
Your activity (however well intentioned) in closing/moving threads is much
more annoying than the occasional post in the wrong newsgroup.
Merging newsgroups with web forums can only work if attention is also paid
to the user experience of the half of us that use nntp newsreaders. I hear
occasional references to “stickies” that I understand are some kind of
standing post in the web forums. None of us with nntp readers will ever see
them, unless they never expire old messages. If some attention was paid to
nntp readers, perhaps this material could be periodically posted, so we
could see them too.
And no, I’m not going to take my marbles and go away, but the present
situation makes MY experience much LESS rewarding, and reduces my
participation.
–
bob@rsmits.ca (Robert Smits, Ladysmith BC)
“I’m not one of those who think Bill Gates is the devil. I simply suspect
that if Microsoft ever met up with the devil, it wouldn’t need an
interpreter.” - Nicholas Petreley