Me too, which is why I don't like Forums. With an E-Mail list, I don't have to go and hunt for messages, they arrive in my in-box/filtered folder. The E-Mail client remembers what I have read and what I haven't, and includes a search tool
A forum means I have to go and look for new messages, which may or may not be there. Then I have to work out whether there are any new threads, which isn't always obvious, and if there aren't whether there are any new messages in old threads (likewise).
If the forum attempts to "thread" so that later replies appear before earlier ones, it becomes even more of a nightmare to keep up with unless you don't read the message until after everyone has responsed (eg if someone asks a question Q, and three people respond with A1, A2, A3, You read the Thread an then someone responds to A1 with A1.1, and the forum displays this between A1 and A2, you end up scrolling up and down through "old" messages to try and find the new information)
> For me forums are easier to deal with. I go there, see topics laid
> out in a structured format and work through what interests me. I
> can subscribe to hot topics and easily ignore the ones I've no
> interest in.
I confess to still being confused why people find it possible to ignore things that don't interest them in a forum, but not in a mailing list. If it is in your in-box and your not interested you can delete it. If it's in a forum, you can only do that if you are the Administrator (and if you are the administrator and are deleting things *purely* because they don't interest you then (at least in terms of a Gloranthan list) then I would suggest you are probably not the right person to be acting as an administrator (Widely off topic and Spam posts obviously have more reason than purely not interesting you, of course)
> These are personal preferences. I enjoy forums and don't enjoy
> message lists. That's the strength of it. I also prefer coffee to
> tea and brown bread to white. Your preferences will differ.
>
Not when it comes to Coffee...
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