[TowerTalk] Moving ham radio eflectors to permit attachments

[Lux, Jim]

On 12/21/21 5:53 AM, Pete Smith N4ZR wrote:
> Since my earlier posting, I have learned that since February, 2021, 
> groups.io has charged for groups larger than 100 members. While I 
> think donations could easily cover these costs, and would be willing 
> to administer a donations account on Paypal, that might be just too 
> much complexity for some sysops.  In that case, how about Google 
> Groups?  So far as I can tell, their email groups are completely free, 
> regardless of size.
>
I've been on several mailing lists for years, on various platforms.  I'm 
also of the "original" computer generation, so that creates some biases 
(see Gretchen McCulloch's great book "Because Internet: Understanding 
the New Rules of Language".)  I'm a moderator on a list (Tesla Coil 
Mailing List) so I have some insight into that as well.

Yes, the ability to have attachments is tough, but it's not that hard to 
set up google drive, dropbox, etc. and post a link.

That makes moderation easier - no worries about infected or off-color 
attachments. Yes, moderators sometimes take a look at what's linked to, 
if the url looks funky, or if its a new poster. (and I do that in a 
sandbox).

The various message board/forum/mailing software works moderately ok, 
but often has some idiosyncracies that are a pain.  For instance, they 
may assume everyone is using the threaded web interface, so if you're 
just looking at emails, they don't have any context.  Of course, you 
also don't get the phenomenon of a 30 mail long digest with a bunch of 
long threads, each 10 mails long.  I've also noticed that some sites 
(groups.io) has recently implemented something where it rejects a reply, 
unless you have *recently* downloaded mail from the list. This is a pain 
if you use mail in an episodic fashion (i.e. you work during the day and 
don't check for personal mail until evening).