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Advantages/disadvantages of digests
On Thu, 25 Jun 1998 AUS62 at aol_com wrote:
> Perhaps a better way to present the problem of Digest form vs simple posting
> of questions is to EXPLAIN the methodology and advantages of the Digest form
> used by Killietalk. I personally do not like it as much, but it might be MY
> fault as I don't know how to utilize it properly. Thanks
The big advantage to digests is that it reduces the number of messages
the sending server has to handle. But that doesn't affect the
end-user.
For the user, the digest provides no advantages that can't be achieved
and even surpassed by using a good mail reader or mail filter. (The
primary complaint about non-digest mode is that it "clutters" up the
mail box. A good mail reader should reduce this clutter to something
*more* managable than digests.)
Digests provide the disadvantages of meaningless subject lines,
over-quoting, an inability to "thread" subjects, an inconvenience when
replying to the poster instead of the list, and just a general
inconvenience of having all the messages in one big chunk instead of
more managable bite-sized pieces.
It also slows down conversation a lot. I've noticed that digest-only
mailing lists often have much less traffic than "normal" lists. This
is partially due to the fact that digests aren't sent out on a time
basis, but on a size basis.... messages sit until the digest gets big
enough. (Though the server is usually set up to force out at least
one digest a day.) So the messages I write today may not be seen by
anybody until tomorrow morning... on a real list, you'd be able to see
my reply in a matter of minutes.
--
Carl D. Cravens Systems Administrator
cravens at southwind_net
SouthWind Internet Access, Inc. Wichita: 316-263-7963
http://www.southwind.net/ Elsewhere: 1-800-525-7963