[Maurice R. Kelly]

On Jul 27, Miron Mizrahi wrote:

> well, I participate in a number of Yahoo music related groups and I

<snippage>

> it also has some annoyances (ads mostly if you read on the web) but
> I wouldn't mind seeing PW make its way there.

If I recall correctly, a historical reason for Powderworks being
email-based was due to the fact that, at the time of it's inception, the
Web was not as commonplace, and email served as a very good lowest common
denominator. More people had access to email then, and so a mailing list
really was ideal. There was also the fact that downloading the messages to
your local disk meant that you weren't online for as long - important
considering how expensive access to the 'net was.

Since then a number of alternative mediums have either been used, or
proposed, for Powderworks. I myself proposed making alt.music.midnight-oil
on Usenet. I wasn't the first, and I wasn't the last. People have
suggested bulletin boards before. We've briefly dabbled with IRC for
"real-time" Oils chat. But in the end, Powderworks is this mailing list.
Despite alternative propositions, this list has remained the core Midnight
Oil gathering on the Internet.

In the past, propositions to move Powderworks to Usenet, or bulletin
boards, or the likes of Yahoo groups, have generally been responded to
with "more people have access to email, and so it's the most ideal place
to keep Powderworks." Despite the proliferation of the Web, email is just
as easy to access, especially with free web-based email accounts. I see no
real benefit to moving to something like Yahoo groups. In fact, I think
stuff like Yahoo groups is generally evil, but that's a personal niggle.

If people are having problems with following threads, then may I suggest
using some sort of threading newsreader. I'm pretty sure Netscape/Mozilla
Mail can handle some sort of threading.

Cheers,

-- 
Maurice R. Kelly
mkelly@deadheart.org.uk