[Harp-L] Re: New archive

["Ben J. Nathanson" <bjnath@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

> The Yahoo archive has one extremely valuable feature for those of us
> who actually read Harp-L on the Web

George is right: Yahoo has a nice browsing interface to the list, and we
don't really have anything equivalent.

A user can walk the archive datewise, using Next by Date links, but that's
not an easy way to scan dozens of posts.

One response is simply to nod gratefully to Yahoo and recommend its
interface to list members who browse. Yahoo's archive has many weaknesses
that we offset (low retention, ads, awkward and unsophisticated searching) ,
and we can accept that it offsets a weakness of ours (browsability).

Still, I too use the web, and I early in the project I considered the value
of making harp-l a real web discussion group. Email is a sturdy but
suboptimal technology for multiway discussion. But ripping up the list was
unthinkable, and there seemed no way to have both the existing list and a
dynamic live interface.

Fortunately, this is a perceived need in the world of mailing lists and
discussion software, and I recently heard of  beta software that may address
it (http://m2f.sourceforge.net). Since Yahoo fills our browsing gap, this is
not a priority project, but it does certainly interest me. I'd be interested
in what others think.

In this connection I have to say how wonderful it is that we control our
machine. We're free to try stuff. We can leverage off our own commitment and
install whatever technology we wish when we choose to. We don't have to
email instructions to a third party who serves a bunch of customers and
takes the weekends off.