On 18/03/07, Chris Rowson <<a href="mailto:christopherrowson@gmail.com">christopherrowson@gmail.com</a>> wrote:<div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;"> I checked out the <a href="http://ubuntuforums.org">ubuntuforums.org</a> earlier today to see whether or not there was a UK LoCo section there. I was a little surprised to read that the mailing list had voted not to have a presence at <a href="http://ubuntuforums.org">ubuntuforums.org</a> and I have a little difficulty understanding why. Surely in this day and age, forums are a viable alternative to mailing lists, and even preferable in some situations. I wondered if the decision to opt out of <a href="http://ubuntuforums.org">ubuntuforums.org</a> was influenced by a fear of such a presence damaging the usage of the mailing list. Whilst I can see why this might be a slap in the face to people who have invested so much time into building up the mailing list, surely if people would prefer to communicate through the forums, it'd be a good idea to use them and 'grow' the community. I am - I know making the assumption that people prefer forums, but I think in general this assumption seems to be true. Where mailing lists are the mainstay of open source and linux communication I think forums would give the group a higher profile and encourage a far greater interaction with the community. Does anyone else agree or am I alone? Is there any harm in requesting a UK LoCo forum? Chris</blockquote><div> I have been asked why I do not help folks in the forums of another OSS project I develop for before and this was my general answer: 'I can filter and manage inbound mail far easier than browsing forums and more often than not I can pick and choose what to look at higher speeds on my local drive using searches rather than in a forum where I am held back by server/connection speeds. It is also far easier to track my responses via sent mail items rather than trying to track anything on a forum.' Time is also a massive issue. Personally I have bill paying work, OSS work and what I a laughingly call a life away from computers (a beer or ten occasionally :-D). So reading so many messages across many support platforms just ain't feasible! Regards Phil </div> </div>