Re: Discourse

One of the few web interfaces that seems pretty functional these days is Google's with their "Enterprise" lineup (Email, Docs, Spreadsheets, presentations, etc). They act like full-featured desktop apps and not handicapped versions. Personally, I think the current email-based setup works fine. I haven't had to browse an archive for info, but I'm sure there's a way.

Jean & Co. put in a whole lot of time bringing us support for a great piece of software, so I think they've more than "done their duty" for the community.

On Thu, Feb 23, 2023 at 5:15 PM Wols Lists <antlists@youngman.org.uk> wrote:

On 22/02/2023 12:39, Andrew Bernard wrote:
> My offer is open. For the main Discourse server I run, amusingly the
> majority of people use the email interface, no matter how much I
> encourage them to use the nice web interface. [It's a forum devoted to
> harpsichord.] The point is that it runs the web interface and email list
> including digests in parallel, and you can initiate topics by email as
> well.

Your "nice web interface" is my "pain in the arse". I much prefer to
work in an off-line manner, using text. I can't work off-line with a web
server.

Most web sites (can't speak for Discourse, I've never touched it) are
stuffed full of adverts that often obscure the text I'm interested in.
Many of the websites I interact with on a regular basis (shopping, of
course) have completely broken print interfaces, so bad that one page of
interesting web text will give 20 pages of print with all of the
interesting text missing ...

Pretty much EVERY web site I CHOOSE to interact with has its design
ethos stuck in the last century. Discourse might be similar, but I have
absolutely no desire to find out. And the last I heard of discourse (it
sounds like your setup is better) email appeared to be a second class
citizen.

And of course, the other massive difference between web and email is
that I have to actively visit the website - I've got better things to do
with my time. Email just ends up in my (in this case) lilypond-box for
me to scan as and when I have nothing better to do :-)

This is only my opinion - other people are free to disagree. There's no
right or wrong, only a whole bunch of lost people who for one reason or
another are unwilling/unable to make the transition. I've had a list
move underneath me - I didn't move with it ...

Cheers,
Wol

From:	Jeff Kopmanis
Subject:	Re: Discourse
Date:	Thu, 23 Feb 2023 17:43:02 -0500