Long long ago in a Net galaxy far far away...

Once upon a time, there was email. And mailing lists were born. And slow modems were no match for the traffic. And Net News (aka Usenet) was created to handle the load. And all was well.

And time passed. More people got on the Net. More companies (and frequent users) got broadband access. Even though, today, the US ranks 19th (gack!) in broadband usage per capita in the world, nevertheless email is a lot faster (and miuch more prevalent) than it was back in the 70's and 80's.

Many of us prefer to have conversations come to our desktops. I'm one of those people. I've had an email address since before the time when the @ sign was added (think on that). Email is important to me. If I have to "go" to a site to read it, I won't read it. RSS is all very well and good, but it's my email client that is open 24/7. I have a very nice RSS client - I forget to click on it.

I still read a few "news groups" - but if and only if they are gatewayd through email. If this forum could be gatewayed through email, I would happily read it too.

But as near as I can tell, no one has yet come up with a convenient way to gateway forums into email. Thus, I have to agree with Chris (fncll).

I don't, personally, like forums. I see them as a step backwards in technology and communication. The only way I'll see responses to this thread is if the board emails them to me.

I believe Merlin when he says he doesn't intend to kill off the Google Group. However, I express my own concern over the "closing" of that group to new members. I am hopeful that the Google groups (email) members and Merlin can come to a mutually satisfacotry compromise that will allow the email list to reopen, grow, and prosper.

Ya'all hereon the forukm will be most welcome to come over there when that happens :-)