Discussion board and listserv

[Martin Taylor 991206 17:40

> [Norman Hovda (991204.1730)]

> My reference level for it as _only_ a message board and not a
> listserv may be in error.

I believe your right. It is not a true listserv. But I think the benefits
outwiegh the negatives. At least from a CSG perspective.

The Discus Pro software can be set up to work as a listserv or not,
either as each individual recipient desires or as a global option of
the administrator. I believe Discus Pro is the software Marc has.

The main problem, to my mind, is that if it is used as a listserver,
each message has a considerable amount of added boilerplate (in addition
to a useful URL to the thread in the archives to which the message
belongs). I was using Discus Pro as a listserv for another group I
belong to for a while, but the boilerplate was too much, and I stopped.
But I think that could probably be reduced by judicious editing of
the CGI source.

A better alternative, I think, might be to have all the messages
automatically posted to CSGnet, rather than to individuals registered
with the discussion board who choose to receive them. That way, people
could choose whether to continue to get the full set of messages on
CSGnet (push) or to read the threads of interest on the discussion
board from time to time when they want to do so (pull).

Martin