[jdev] email is a slum

[Bob Wyman]

Peter Saint-Andre wrote:
> I'm seriously wondering if we can do mailing
> lists via pubsub. Email is a slum.
	It makes a great deal of sense to process new messages using pubsub,
however, you really should provide some sort of message archive so that
people can catch up on potentially very old discussions as well as access
the conversation if they don't have a Jabber/pubsub client available. I
strongly suggest that you consider using the Atom syndication format[1,2]
for building such message archives. 
	Mail is terribly overused since it is just about the only commonly
available mechanism by which content can be "pushed" to some who has
expressed an interest in receiving updates. My hope is that as PubSub
becomes more well-known and popular that we'll be able to wean people from
sending mail and have them use pubsub instead. Ideally, mail would return to
what it once was: A means for personal communication rather than a general
content delivery mechanism... In the future, we'll hear people say and
write: "Don't mail it! Publish it!"...

		bob wyman

[1] http://www.mnot.net/drafts/draft-nottingham-atom-format-02.html
[2] http://www.imc.org/atom-syntax/index.html