Re: [Harp-L] Re: harp-l "forum" in future?

[Joseph Leone <3n037@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

When I came on the list in 2000, and slidemeister in 2001, I liked the direct post format. Even if I went away for 13 days and came back to find 129 posts in my mail box, it was no big deal to 
go through them. It may have taken 2.5 hours if I read them all. Which is what I used to do. Now I can go through them in 44 minutes. And I like the idea of being able to post into posts at my leisure.
OR dump posts that don't pertain to me as an island. Like anything with tango, blues, altered tunings, famous old players, who died, and like that. And I can hold ON to posts for later perusal.
Slidemeister had gone to a forum format several years ago, and while it DOES offer a huge number of options and services, I find it to be a pain in the shorts in some respects.  

The problem with a forum, is that everything is broken into categories. And if you are not on top of the recent posts, you have to go all the way back through the previous posts to understand what the Swahili 
is going on. In a way, that takes MORE time and you could wind up spending it on stuff that doesn't interest you, once you get back to the beginning. You also loose topics if you don't punch on them AS
they are occurring. Then you have to constantly surf and search backwards. 

Hey maybe I'm all wet on this one, but if harp-l were to go to forum, I would seriously consider dropping out. Yes, I DO understand that there are those on the list that have precious little time to go through
all the posts as they come in in real time, but I never found it to be that big a deal. I can cut the grass, read some posts, fix the bathroom exhaust fan, read some posts, go to the super market, read some posts.
So I happen to like the direct mail approach. And I respect other viewpoints. 


smokey-joe