 |
 |
Arthur Hirsch stated: >News groups have the advantage of being organized in threads. But that's >the only advantage that I know of. To me, the news groups would be another >place to look for pretty much the same data that are in this listserv, and >perhaps another place to post them. This would be an annoyance. It would >also seem to be hard to archive, as the news group items are purged regularly. > Newsgroups are purged periodically, depending on your Internet Service Provider, and newsgroup posts are also purged according to options you set in your newsgroup reader on your PC. However, AltaVista and DejaNews (major web search engines) do in fact archive newsgroups, and there is an interesting thread on the alt.privacy newsgroup thread concerning this. So anyone could probably easily retrieve any newsgroup posting. The disadvantages to a Parkinson's newsgroup are as you mentioned - redundant coverage of the topic. An advantage, however, is that not everyone is aware of this list, and thus new interested parties might be attracted to the newsgroup. It might also tend to draw in a more global readership, including medical professionals, caregivers, and persons affected. I'm fairly new to this list, and I use it as a source of information (my mother has Parkinson's). I initially did a newsgroup search on the disease and found nothing. Searching the web eventially lead me to this list. So I don't have specific recommendations, other than these comments. ** Fred Elbel [log in to unmask] ** ** http://www.csn.net/~felbel/ **