web forums do have quite a few things that make them better than usenet, the most important one being simply that they're more mainstream (perhaps not more popular statistically, but it seems to me that usenet is dying out)
but it can get really annoying when you're signed up to 60 web forums like me: having to log into each one, remember how to use its differing interface (and deal with whatever limitations its particular interface has), and waiting for the slow server to generate the page and serve it to me.
so why not have an xml-based format for accessing web forums? each forum could still have its own restrictions and such and forum software companies could still probably come up with new features without a lot of difficulty. it would all just have to comply with a set of minimum requirements, and sites could choose whether or not to include certain features.
the anandtech rss feed is wonderful, which is why I'm bringing up this question again. but being unable to post/reply makes its use pretty limited.
but it can get really annoying when you're signed up to 60 web forums like me: having to log into each one, remember how to use its differing interface (and deal with whatever limitations its particular interface has), and waiting for the slow server to generate the page and serve it to me.
so why not have an xml-based format for accessing web forums? each forum could still have its own restrictions and such and forum software companies could still probably come up with new features without a lot of difficulty. it would all just have to comply with a set of minimum requirements, and sites could choose whether or not to include certain features.
the anandtech rss feed is wonderful, which is why I'm bringing up this question again. but being unable to post/reply makes its use pretty limited.
