Forum?

Ryan Schmidt ryandesign at macports.org
Sat Oct 15 11:04:49 PDT 2011


On Oct 15, 2011, at 11:09, syed zubair wrote:

> What is the difference between the two? Mailing list and Forum.
> Sounds somewhat contrived!

A forum is a web site you go to to read messages, and you participate in discussions by clicking a reply button on that web page and entering text into a web form.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_forum

A mailing list is a service you subscribe to that delivers messages to your email inbox, and you participate in the discussion by replying to those messages by email. Most mailing lists also have a web site where you can browse the list's archives.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronic_mailing_list

Google Groups is sort of a hybrid which offers both mechanisms at the same time; the user can choose which he wants to use.

I like mailing lists better because the conversation is delivered directly to me without me having to do anything, beyond having my email program open, which I generally already do. I hear the "new message" sound and can see that new messages have arrived in the folders into which I sort my mailing list messages.

Whereas with a forum, I have to constantly go visit the forum web site to see if any new messages have arrived. I seldom remember to do so.




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