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Developer Perspective: Newsgroups or forums?

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Yesterday I was talking with Betsy and
Tina about Newsgroups vs. Forums, and whether developers prefer one over the other.
For me, it's kind of a mixed bag. In general, I like the rich client experience
that I see in forums, but I also like the ability to search across newsgroups with Google
Groups. But then again I'm not a developer (and I've never even played one on
TV, although I did work in the computer center in college, where my claim to fame
was deleting everything in [1,2] ;-) So I'd love to hear what *you*
think -- do you have a preference, and if so, why? Blog it and let me know
in the comments, or send me email at lauraj at microsoft.com.

[Now Playing: Buffalo Springfield - Expecting to Fly (03:43)]

Comments

  • Anonymous
    November 15, 2003
    I prefer the idea of newsgroups but it never seems to work out like I want. I am able to find information easier on forums and I am able to "subscribe" to them, usually, so any new posts will be mailed to me.
  • Anonymous
    November 15, 2003
    NNTP through Outlook Express all the way baby! You can flag messages, watch messages, sort messages, search messages, expand and collapse messages ... save messages, forward messages ... I'm sure there's more that I'm not thinking of.I've used NNTP newsgroups via Outlook Express for years and I've never really felt comfortable with the Forums. I can fly around the newsgroups and perform actions all over the place. With the forums, it's like I just read and scroll and blah, blah, blah .... Even this reply is taking me an abnormally long time to write because I'm not used to it!I'll send this message to your blog and I'll forget about it. In Outlook Express, I'd flag it and check back on it.
  • Anonymous
    November 15, 2003
    for me, newsgroups are much better...forums are usually spread out, you have to register, etc. i wish every "news" standard could move to a simple model...nntp works because i can configure multiple profiles in outlook express and only launch one place to see my threaded discussions, etc...not go to xyz blog, or google group a, or custom asp.net forum b, etc...-th
  • Anonymous
    November 18, 2003
    Forums for me. The only way I use newsgroups is the Google search engine over them. However, I've been bad for going to www.asp.net/forums lately, so perhaps it is moot.TTFN - Kent
  • Anonymous
    November 19, 2003
    Both. Forums work well for certain types of community (see http://arstechnica.com 's forums), and not for others.I personally preffer forums for the simple reason that people tend to be less big headed, and the traffic is lower so you can keep on top of it.
  • Anonymous
    November 20, 2003
    Newsgroups. I find forums dispersive. First: every site has its own... this creates also problems of managing the community, screening them for inappropriate or illegal material as well. Second: some forums are less featureful than newsgroups. Yes, on newsgroups you can' t link your image, or you can't have your avatar, or have fancy html... but this also means that on usenet you focus more on the message than on a forum.
  • Anonymous
    December 03, 2003
    Thanks, everyone, for your comments, they have been very helpful!
  • Anonymous
    January 12, 2004
    Definitely forums.