[pmwiki-users] Re: pmwiki-users Digest, Vol 2, Issue 41

Neil Herber nospam at eton.ca
Mon Aug 8 09:27:07 CDT 2005


At 2005-08-05  11:45 PM -0500, Patrick R. Michaud is rumored to have said:
>At any rate, I'm thinking the ultimate answer is that we should
>be copying the contents of important archive messages into the
>wiki and not simply referencing the messages, since we can't
>guarantee the stability or availability of the archives to
>people reading the documentation.  This also improves the
>search results.

A big advantage of wiki page content over references to email archives is 
that wiki pages change over time to reflect current thinking. I hate 
reading through a list of referred pages or a string of email messages or a 
long series of posts on a message board only to find that the last one says 
something like "as of beta 54, this feature has been incorporated into the 
core". On a wiki (in the best of all worlds) the page would simply identify 
something that was a concern which has now been addressed. The curious can 
read the history to see what went on.

<slightly off topic>
I have an HTML capable email client with HTML turned off. If I want to look 
at pictures, I have a browser, which does a much better job. I also run a 
couple of mailing lists where I have disabled HTML posting for several 
reasons: HTML is often a massive waste of bandwidth, people can always post 
links to their pictures, and HTML makes the digests unreadable.

I have no problem with people sending person to person HTML emails, but 
mailing lists should be just mail! Look at the number of posts on this list 
per day and imagine them all with backgrounds and text styling and ... 
(runs screaming from room)
</slightly off topic>


Neil

Neil Herber
Corporate info at http://www.eton.ca/
Eton Systems, 15 Pinepoint Drive, Nepean, ON, Canada K2H 6B1
Tel: (613) 829-4668 





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