My thoughts & questions about the move

[Stuart MacDonald]

I'm not trying to change George's mind about the move from his boards to Google Groups. It's a done deal.

Thanks George for hosting the boards for all these years, it's been an invaluably helpful service to many, myself included. I sincerely hope the discussion groups continue to be as valuable after the move.

I'm not a fan of Google Groups UI. When all you have is a hammer (email UI) everything looks like a nail (email). The trouble is that a discussion group isn't email and trying to force it doesn't make it work. Having said that, now I'm not remembering what my objections were. Incorrect threading I think.

Nonetheless George's UI was superior. I miss it.

The discussions and the rest of the DIRC resources are now in two different places on the web. I suspect this will have an overall lessening effect; less links in discussions to DIRC resources, less people looking around the DIRC website since they're going direct to Google Groups for the discussions. Stuff like that. I think this is counterproductive to George's original purpose for the discussion groups.

Are these groups moderated at all? I don't see anything that indicates either way.

The Share Exchange has lost the 'Caution to Newbies' link, which I think was important. I don't see an easy way to add it.

And a side note about the floating add at the bottom of the DIRC website: George I don't know if you're content-filtering those ads or not...  in a quick test 8 of 10 ads featured women in a sexualized situation. I'm pretty liberal and very good at ignoring ads, but other people might be put off by them.

...Stu (studog on the old boards)

[Stuart MacDonald]

Google Groups does not have a UI indication of new unread messages in a particular group, so one has to look into every group to see if there are new messages. That's...  well, I would say sub-optimal but here in our third decade of internet it's actually closer to unacceptable.

Share Exchange was usually the busiest board....  now it's a ghost town. I suspect this indicates that the move wasn't a great idea.

...Stu (studog on the old boards)

[Bruce Taylor]

Yes, I am with you, Studog.  Tigger