[Mailman-Users] Advantages - Files

[Stephen J. Turnbull]

Keith Bierman writes:

 > Obviously, since we're all here we've chosen mailman and related
 > tools. But for a relatively small group of novices wouldn't the old
 > egroups.com (taken over by yahoo ages ago, but lives on)

Friends don't let friends use Yahoo! services.  They demonstrably have
security issues, and they consider their security problems to be a
justification for poor netizenship.  I've come to have a grudging
respect for their postmaster staff (which I cannot say for AOL)[1],
but I consider their management to be untrustworthy on their best
days.

I don't know about Google and Hotmail services.  It's possible they're
subject to the same considerations as Yahoo! and AOL, but have been
lucky so far.  Your guess is as good as mine, or better, maybe. :-)

 > or google groups be an appropriate solution? They've got shared
 > file areas, moderation, web and email interfaces, etc.

And lock-in.  If you ever decide you want the amenities of a modern
MLM like Mailman, getting your data back out of any of these services
is not easy (compared to getting it out of Mailman, anyway -- at the
very least, although you'll make Mark sad if you say you're migrating
away from Mailman, it won't delay his helpful answer more than a few
milliseconds).

Agreed, those services are something to consider.  I've never been
happy with them as a user, though.


Footnotes: 
[1]  By which I mean the folks from these organizations I meet on the
IETF mailing lists.