This is kind of a strange topic to bring up on a forum, but I suspect there is enough experience with online discussions here that I can hopefully get some dialogue.
In the '90s, I spent a lot of time using mailing lists. Mailing lists became such a common way of disseminating information that I was on over 50 Yahoo Groups plus miscellaneous listservs.
I've had the admins of two Yahoo Groups choose to switch to a forum format instead. Where I might expect spirited discussions that have 5-20 replies in a day in the list, I would find a ghost town in the forum, sometimes with no new post in several days.
I lamented the drop in discussions, and I'm trying to figure out why. One benefit of the mailing list is that you get all your responses in one location, assuming you only register one e-mail address. With a forum, you have to go out to the site. I have a core group of forums I check daily (such as this one), but there are a lot of forums that I don't check. I'm sure the same is true for many others, which would explain why I see conversations die out.
Of course, there is the matter that a forum seems more accessible to people. This forum right here has the people it has because it is very convenient for the type of people who come here. I wonder what would have happened if it started as a Dominion mailing list? I don't see it being quite as popular. At the very least, we wouldn't have a General thread or ongoing games.
And maybe it's a matter of some topics work really well as lists and some work really well with forums. Maybe what I'm seeing in the decline of conversation in those two Yahoo Groups the inevitable result of switching to a format that is not as accessible for that particular topic and/or members.
