Haven't we learnt anything about usability?

[Dennis Brunnenmeyer]

Just so everyone on this list has an idea of what 
one alternative method of posting to a list looks 
like, I've included the principle headers from 
another list to which I subscribe. Mind you, my 
subscription is set up to receive "digests" 
several times daily rather than individual 
postings as they are sent to the list server. A 
digest contains a collection of postings, 
concatenated down the page. A typical digest will 
contain from 2 to 12 postings, each basically an 
email message sent by the posting member. I do 
not recommend using digests; I just include the 
header information to show what the Reply-To: and From: lines look like.

One possibly major disadvantage of this method of 
posting is the latency involved. That is, a 
posting may not appear for several hours, whereas 
direct email may be quicker—perhaps near 
instantaneous. I don't recall how quickly 
individual postings appeared prior to when I 
changed over to a digest format. Timeliness may 
be a good reason for leaving things the way they are.

The FOLKDJ-L subscriber list comprises folk music 
artists, radio DJs that play folk music, 
publicity agents, record label staffers and so 
on. It is used to share radio program playlists 
and occasionally to make announcements of one kind or another.

This list is a LISTSERV list. I suppose MAILMAN could do something similar:

Date:  Mon, 19 May 2008 11:57:29 -0400
Reply-To: Folk and Bluegrass DJs <FOLKDJ-L at lists.psu.edu>
Sender: Folk and Bluegrass DJs <FOLKDJ-L at lists.psu.edu>
From: FOLKDJ-L <LISTSERV at lists.psu.edu>
Subject: FOLKDJ-L - 19 May 2008 - Special issue (#2008-427)
To: FOLKDJ-L at LISTS.PSU.EDU

Note that a Reply to any message in the digest is a Reply to the list.

Dennis...

Dennis Brunnenmeyer
Director of Engineering
CEDAR RIDGE SYSTEMS
15019 Rattlesnake Road
Grass Valley, CA 95945-8710
Office: (530) 477-9015
Fax:  (530) 477-9085
Mobile: (530) 320-9025
eMail:  dennisb /at/ chronometrics /dot/ com