AndyHancock wrote
> Rod Speed <
rod.speed....@gmail.com> wrote
>> There are some examples of forums that
>> have nothing to do with any corporation.
> Do you mean places that actually maintain an archive, with public access to it?
Yes, I use 3 of them regularly.
> I'd be curious as to examples.
http://forums.whirlpool.net.au/
http://www.austech.info/
http://forums.overclockers.com.au/
> Even Tom's Hardware is associated with a business.
> I guess there might be nonprofit groups
Yes, mostly supported by advertising to some extent.
Others supported by donation like wikipedia.
> that work toward standardization,
Havent noticed much of that.
> or something along those lines.
Yes, that sort of nonprofit group isnt all that uncommon.
>> I dont care for moderated forums much myself, but do
>> recognise that they can be a better source of info that
>> usenet now that usenet has faded away so dramatically now.
> Agreed, there is a loss of freedom from moderation. My personal
> opinion (if it ain't too redundant to say that!) is from the point of view
> of a info seeker, since I'm rarely a guru. I have found the signal-to-noise
> to be much improved, even compared to grouples days of old. Of course,
> sometimes the moderation can be downright Stalinist,
Yeah, whirlpool can be like like that, with some rather silly ideas to boot.
Our two govt national broadcasters allow you to watch most of
what they broadcast online, but with the TV material generally dont
allow you to download whats online, you have to watch it online.
One fella has automated the downloading of that stuff, like happens
with youtube, and whirlpool keeps killing his posts in their forums.
> particularly when corporate reputation is at stake. Just like
> the wild west has its pros and cons, so does moderation.
Yeah, I was actually the moderator in one fidonet group that
we had deliberately setup for a group of us to discuss anything
we felt like. We kept getting one clown particularly try to impose
himself as the moderator, so we made me the moderator just so
we could tell him to bugger off and mind his own business.
My policy was that anyone could do anything they liked.
>> I also prefer to be able to use
groups.google to search
>> for old posts, but now google itself is so useful, it does
>> help with finding relevant forums for specific issues.
> Agreed.
>> The other very real problem with forums is that there is a lot more
>> completely uninformed comment with lots just guessing and not
>> actually knowing anything much about what they are talking about.
>> So they can be a real pain to use, much higher level of useless posts.
> Yes, that does happen. I found that it happens in corporate forums
> and grouples days of old. However, my experience with forums is
> that trolls get called out, so they don't thrive in corporate forums.
I wasnt talking about trolls so much as those who werent aware of how ignorant they were.
There is a real tendency for most to not point that out to them, presumably
because that can be seen as not being acceptible behaviour, too controversial.
> On usenet, people will sometimes deliberately post obfuscating
> or false information for the fun of it. [ Not this thread, of course :) ]
Yeah, its a particular problem with 'reviews' on the net.