Re: What happened to this grooup?

"Neb Okla" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> "Kevin Johnston" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
> news:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> >
> > > And even that example isn't as flexible as the NNTP standard 
> > > which at the very least allows access to a variety of news 
> > > readers, along with a more responsive interface, and the ability 
> > > to respond to posts offline.
> >
> > Which Lugnet supports.  Does any other community website do that?  It's
> > certainly very uncommon.
> 
> From what I've seen, you have to post your message, then wait for it to
> arrive via email, then approve it, etc.
> 
> What a pain.
> 
> They could just reqire a username and password for NNTP access - instead of
> their crackpot authentication scheme for every email.

I totally agree, that is very unwieldy.

I think Lugnet is more anal about security than they need to be, in 
general -- e.g. the very strict rules about passwords, which virtually 
gauarantees that one can't memorize them, nor re-use passwords from 
other sites.  Lugnet provides more user-content features -- it's not 
"just" a discussion board -- for which higher security makes sense, but 
it's still much harsher than similar sites out there.


> > I thought it was pretty clear from context that I meant Lugnet itself is
> > archived, esp. since I said "unlike most web forums."  Most web forums,
> > esp. those centered on something like a hobby, eventually expire the
> > vast majority of the posted messages.
> 
> It's clearly better than Yahoo Groups, if that's what you're saying.

I frequent several other toy-related boards (none on Yahoo) and none 
that I can think of have full archives.  Some do "archive" 
popular/useful threads, meaning a moderator flags them and sometimes 
moves them into a "vault" section.  But large chunks of content go off 
into the ether after a few months.

This is not necessarily an awful thing; many web-based forums are very 
chatty, and the contents of many threads is not worth any extraordinary 
effort to save.  You're depending on the editorial acumen of the 
moderators, of course.

Manufacturer websites (Art Asylum, Palisades Toys, etc.) are especially 
bad about nuking content.  This serves their purposes (they're not in 
the business of archiving this stuff), but potentially some good 
reference material is lost this way.  There's also the possibility -- 
very real, it's happened -- that the whole board gets dumped when the 
company gets bought, or they decide to change internal tools, or 
makeover the website, or whatever.  The nice thing about Lugnet and some 
other fan-based sites is that the fact they are fan-based makes them 
less susceptible to being tossed out the window.  Esp. once a community 
builds up -- if Lugnet's owners lost interest or ability, someone 
(actually many someones) would step forward to maintain or outright 
procure the content.

Kevin