CENSUS: Linux or Win32

[Walter Bright]

BCS wrote:
> Well, that sort of leave out anyone who doesn't use forums.
> 
> I don't use them.
> 
> This is because I find them a total pain to use, because of several things:
> 
> 1: the only access to them is a web page
> 2: it requires a large amount of excess bandwidth (images, forms, etc.)
> 3: the pages require an active connection to work (I don't have this)
> 4: No convenient way to save posts for later reading.
> 5: No threading.
> 6: I could go on...
> 
> Thank you Walter for using NNTP!!!

I get bonked here now and then for using NNTP rather than some forum 
software. The trouble is, I've never found any forum software that is as 
good as the old newsgroup system. They add lots of fancy formatting, 
pretty displays, and omit the useful features.

One item you didn't mention is the forum software's need for 
registration and captchas. Yuk.

For me the ideal setup is forum software that is accessible through both 
a pretty web interface, and through NNTP. We've got an approximation to 
that with the sucky web interface, but as you are all aware, it stinks. 
For unknown reasons, however, it is the best available.

One inexplicably nice thing about having our own digitalmars news server 
for NNTP is the spammers haven't found us. Sure, every once in a while 
we get spammed, but it's not enough to be a problem.