On Fri, 13 Jul 2007, Dave Bayer wrote:
As a newcomer I was stunned that this otherwise very sophisticated community was using an email list rather than a bulletin board. The shear torrent of email was impacting my mail program performance.
This is a cultural thing, and assuming that it's a lack of sophistication on our part is a bad idea - on the contrary, some of the better reasons to avoid a web-based board are entirely about enabling sophistication. Boards need polling. Boards force a single user interface on everyone. Boards don't enable local archives. Etc etc etc. With mail, you can pick a client to suit your needs.
A bulletin board has the capabibility to evolve, e.g. into multiple entry points.
So does a mailing list when you own the domain it's hosted on. -- flippa@flippac.org Sometimes you gotta fight fire with fire. Most of the time you just get burnt worse though.