Mailing Lists vs. Forums

[Mikha]

Hey everybody, I was wondering which method of communication you prefer, mailing lists or forums? Why?

[ilja]

I like Forums more. I find it better to use and also better to find themes.
But maybe it is because, when I started work with the internet there were allready forums and allways after using forums I started to use the UseNet and MailingLists

[Bana]

I like forums although I understand that some knowledge just isn't available anywhere else than on a mailing list. I think that forums are better about organizing the data and giving everyones question the best chance at being answered whereas on a mailing list, threads get trampled and overlooked often.

[David]

heh, most of the mailing lists I've subscirbed to just turn into spam since I never read anything relevant to me in 90% of the posts. I tend to just visit the archives now when I'm sent to them by google.

Forums for me all the way. No having to find your way through threads either, which is much easier.

[Ug]

Bit of a funny question to ask on a forum, don't you think? ;)

[fjleal]

What's a forum?... :D

Seriously, mailing lists are nice to announce new releases of a product, corrected bugs, and so on... I enjoy receiving information from all the mailing lists I'm subscribed to. But a forum is a much better place for exchanging ideas.

We could also ask about IRC channels... Does anybody here frequent #fedora or #fedora-devel?

[Ug]

I'm no big fan of #fedora. There's too much "RTFM" and the Fedora mailing lists scare me. ;)

They just fill up my inbox.

[ewdi]

mailing lists is nice but kind a hard to keep up, as for forums, i like it because it's categorized and easy to search for a topic

[foolish]

#fedora is cripled by people asking the same questions over and over again, not reading the f.a.q. or so before they ask. Of cource people get tired of explaing how to get xmms to play mp3s after a couple of hundred goes and then they just go "AaAH!! Read the f.a.q. will you" or worse than that.

I like forums more, forums makes more sense to me. I actually answer in forums, I never do that on a mailinglist. I just read.

[fjleal]

Originally posted by foolish
#fedora is cripled by people asking the same questions over and over again, not reading the f.a.q. or so before they ask.
Yes, that's true, but that phenomenon also happens in forums... Unavoidably, newbies will register in these forums and ask "I just downloaded FC, now how do I dual-boot with Windows?" over and over again, without first reading the faqs or doing a simple search.

I like IRC channels, or IM systems (Jabber, someone? :)), for its sometimes easier to "dialog" with online people to describe and follow the evolution of a problem than to post in a forum... But of course each communication channel has its place.

[Ug]

Originally posted by foolish
I like forums more, forums makes more sense to me. Aye.

[sailor]

Forums all the way....

[Ug]

(This is so biased ;))

[Varkk]

I prefer forums too, I like being able to browse to it and read it when I am ready, and the messages are presented in a nice structured manner

[Drenon]

Prefer forums by far - however, duty-bound to certain mailing lists ;)