New Screwfix Forums

[PoP]

In case anyone hasn't noticed - Screwfix now have online forum where you can ask questions about anything DIY:

[Chris J Dixon]

tedious to read, compared with newsgroups (using a good newsreader)?

Chris

[S Viemeister]

It's not just you. I have yet to find a web forum that's NOT irritatingly slow and clunky.

[PoP]

I suppose it depends. I don't find online forums at all intimidating, and in some ways preferable to usenet. They each have their inherent advantages.

Then again I've got a broadband connection so I can spend all day on the online forums without it costing me extra - wouldn't be an option for a dial-up, which is where usenet scores.

PoP

[stefek.zaba]

Oh, it's just you, Chris. Apart from web forums being run totally at the whim of the operator, leaving no reference record behind, each having their own lets-try-this-idea posting and searching interface, and relying on a single Web server to handle all of the traffic rather than an established application-tuned distribution architecture, their only other disadvantage is that you're totally stuck with the Forum Designer's idea of a UI, rather than being able to rely on a standard protocol (NNTP) for access to the content, for which a wide variety of useful and different interfaces are available. (Well, and Outlook too). Oh, and for those that care, the intellectual-property status of posts to Usenet is a widely-accepted community standard (all stuff on Usenet is - by the nature of the medium - clearly intended for widespread further copying, and its contents are understood to be "caveat lector" - whereas on a Web forum you're sort of bound by whatever twisted ideas on the "ownership" of both the idea-content and particular-expression the twisted IP lawyers consulted by the forum-setter-upper have dreamt up.

Apart from that[1], they're a grand idea.

Stefek

[1] subject to any other blindingly obvious or perniciously subtle drawbacks other contributors may identify shortly ;-)

[Huge]

No, it's not just you. They're the Usenet equivalent of children's coloured pop-up books.

But newbies seem to like them.

[Huge]

Hear, hear. I couldn't agree more.

[Huge]

Really? What ways? I cannot think of any.

[JimM]

They may be slow and no where near as good as proper newsgroups, but in my case their one advantage is that I can read the web forums at work. Our office system isn't set up for newsgroups and access therefore is only possible via explorer. I know you can read newsgroups via google but this is ridiculously slow for real time, great for looking at archived stuff though.

Jim

[PoP]

With online forums anything you post is available immediately to anyone else who happens to be online. Reason being that there's only one database behind the forums, because there is only one web site (unless you are running a microsoft.com server farm - but even then you are talking pretty much real time because the servers are connected together via high bandwidth LANs and you've most likely got very fast servers anyway). Even relatively slow web servers are very capable of managing several thousand concurrent user connections at one time, simply because you throw the HTML (with embedded forum message) at the user connection and go on to the next connection very quickly - the connection manager will pool the data until the connection is able to receive it, meanwhile the server is hundreds of users further on in the queue. Servers can run a heck of a lot faster than the transfer of data across the network. Even a broadband connection cannot swamp a server with requests.

If this sounds a bit too technical, think of it as a large funnel. You dump an enormous amount of liquid into the top of the funnel, but it takes a while to empty because of the restricted aperture of the funnel. If that funnel had a 10cm aperture rather than a 1cm aperture then it would empty a lot quicker - but the aperture for single Internet connections is pretty restricted.

Usenet is based upon an arrangement whereby the databases are multiple, and coordinated amongst each other via a trickle feed arrangement which can often cause messages to be out of sync with each other. The NNTP server is able to support hundreds of connections too, but the request is served at the point where the request was made, any new messages which might arrive and be processed into the local database will have to wait until the next time usenet is requested by that user (it doesn't update in real time for the user).

On a live online forum you can view a forum, then go to another. If you go back to the original forum it could well have some new responses from other users, which you will see immediately. With usenet you have to do another request in order to see those messages.

Example: Even though I'm in the UK I pick up my usenet feeds (and submit articles) via a server in germany, because the NTL servers used by default by my NTL account aren't very good at keeping up with usenet and the german NNTP feed was recommended by many other people. So when I post a response to usenet it goes out to germany before being propogated to the worlds NNTP servers. That can take several hours. I expect the german servers to pump out my submission to the usenet backbone within a couple of seconds, and most probably those updates arrive with other usenet servers fairly quickly - but from that point on (like email) the server will process the usenet feed in a first-come-first-served arrangement - and at very busy times this can take several hours. It depends how loaded those servers are.

An ISP like Demon Internet or NTL carries a substantial number of newsfeeds, and it is well known that the usenet forums aren't updated in real time. They are queued, and the NNTP server will be configured to process a certain number of queued items in parallel (maybe 100 parallel feeds at a time - but there may be thousands of newsfeeds on the server).

It is entirely feasible that if an article appears on usenet, I could respond to it not having seen your response. And yet if you analyse the responses afterwards you might find that my response was made after yours. It's simply the point at which your local usenet server got its database updated to reflect the discussions that are taking place. You may think it is real time - but it isn't. You get a real-time update at the point you request from usenet - but that "real-time" is the database at the time you make the request.

Is this particulary important though? Probably most times not really. But there could be an extreme example where you were desperate for a response from someone (anyone!), and despite checking usenet every 5 minutes for a response you didn't get one for several hours - even though that response was made just a few minutes after the original submission.

You wouldn't run a patient-monitoring system on the back of usenet.

PoP

[stuart noble]

IMO Motley Fool has better content than the newsgroup equivalents.

[Dave Plowman]

Perhaps you could ask your employer to supply newsgroups so you'd waste less time on web forums?

[chris French]

While rather slow and tedious at times, there are some forums around that fill in gaps or provide better coverage than newsgroups, so I do a read some occasionally. Though this could just as easily be catered by a mailing list.

[Huge]

This is a bad thing, not good. It does not scale.

[10 lines snipped]

This is not necessarily so. for example, I submit usenet news both to demon and to Berlin Free University. The submission to Berlin always fails because demon has already updated them before I get to it.

I've worked in IT since before you were likely born. There's no need to be patronising.

[7 lines snipped]

This is a good thing, not bad. And your use of the word "trickle" is specious.

All the problems that you see with web forums have already been solved. And the solution is called usenet.

I wouldn't run it on a Microsoft web server, either.

[PoP]

The general problem with a mailing list is that you don't have any perspective on threading. It makes it kinda hard to review the last message to what the current one is replying.

I don't think there's any right or wrong about any of this, I like usenet for its threading ability, but I use online forums and mailing lists as well.

PoP

[Huge]

These are not technical issues. I have never seen a web forum that could not be better run as a newsgroup. The thing is, there are no pretty pictures on Usenet, so the newbies don't like them.

[Bob Eager]

In principle, yes. In practice, Usenet does not offer guaranteed delivery. Web forums do.

Usenet isn't scaling well, either; it was fine when I started using it over 20 years ago. I was a news server administrator a while ago, and it was difficult enough then. It's a lot worse now; the sheer volume of data is becoming a real problem.

[Huge]

[Derisive snort]

I'll start mailing all the SQL Server, ASP and Visual Basic errors to you, then, shall I?

If you don't offer the binary groups, Usenet is just fine.

[David W.E. Roberts]

IMHO most online fora are useable. i.e. you can get at the content you need and and post your own questions/comments without too much grief. Again IMHO they tend to be run by specialists and/or enthusiasts and not necessrily of general enough interest to justify a Usenet NG (although there is some low usage and wierd stuff out there). So: if the web forum meets your needs, use it. if it needs improving, tell the owner if you prefer a NG then propose one and see if you get the votes

In some cases the web fora (e.g.

are more targetted to user needs than the more generalised NG. They also tend to be part of a more complex site which offers news, reviews etc.

Some are very specific to the use and support of a range of equipment (e.g.

).

So full marks to Screwfix - they provide a resource, gain marketing information, and focus feedback on their services. Saves them trawling the NGs to look for adverse or positive comment, as some others do.

It also allows close control of posting; you have to sign on to use the service. This may help reduce the SPAM content a bit :-) although this doesn't seem a major issue on uk.d-i-y.

I find that when I am researching some problem, that I get general information from NGs and pick up pointers to more detailed fora from within the NG - which, like FAQs, can help reduce the repetitive posting of basic questions.

Cheers Dave R

[Bob Eager]

Soffware faults are another matter, and were not what I was talking about, as you well know. Web forums may not be perfect, but I'm sure there are many that exceed Usenet in percentage of messages delivered to subscribers.

We'll just have to disagree. There is still too much out there.