EMAIL LISTS

1. What are the pros and cons of email lists versus discussion boards?

I feel that the pro's of email is that you can chose who you wish to acknowledge and allows you to decided if this is something you wish to take any further without any unnecessary intrusion. It allows you to research your point in a more complex way, gain proof of your discussion and converse only on the subject that you are discussing.

Discussion boards on the other hand I have found through personal experience to be, at times, abusive when I have expressed an opinion, with my opinion backed up with references and facts. If I am wrong I will be the first to admit it but find even then you are berated and made to feel small.

Other con's I have found is the incredible increase in SPAM mail from what unbeknownest to me, unsafe sites. I actually had to change my email address due to this problem.

2. Are there certain kinds of communication or purposes more suited to one than the other?

Yes, very much so, there are many people who absolutely adore chat rooms to the point where they spend hours on them and in some cases meet up with people they have met on-line. YUK. I am not that gregarious and much prefer the old fashioned way of meeting someone new in person. I feel that you have an ability to guage their character in a personal interaction - pick up danger signs, lying etc.

Not to say that chatrooms are wrong for other people they are just not for me.

I do prefer email for myself as I like to know who I am communicating with, again my personal preference. I did experiment with MSN as a tool to converse with friends and through some hiccup, probably my fault found people on my list that I had no idea who they were. I still haven't figured out how that happened as my understanding was that you had to approve the person contacting you. This I found very intrusive and don't even get me started on FACEBOOK.

I do however, have a MySpace site which is the only one I found no problems with, it is just a bit of fun. I appreciate that people take it a lot more seriously than I do but I found it to be a secure site (for me anyway) and therefore acceptable.

As I said this is just me so therefore all different sites suit all different people and the kind of lifestyles they choose to lead.