It's now been just over a year since I created the link between the
Backup Central forums and this mailing list. When I first started it,
people asked me to keep a close eye on it and then see how things went
after a year. It's been a year, and here's what I have to report.
First, let me say THANK YOU to everyone on this list for supporting the
idea, even if you thought it was crazy. Posts that were made from the
forum were NOT given "pariah" status; they seemed to be given the same
attention as posts made via the traditional way.
Since implementing this back in January of 2007, 167 of the 4242
messages on this list were made by Backup Central members. While that's
only 4% of the postings, I'd say that's significant. If you take a look
at the posts (at http://www.backupcentral.com/phpBB2), you will see that
there are a good mix of questions AND answers in those posts. Some very
bright people have joined the discussion via the web interface, and I
think that's a Good Thing(tm).
The number one concern, SPAM, has been stopped. Without revealing the
details of my method, I will say that it has been 100% effective since
it was implemented in July. It requires some manual work on my part,
but it keeps me connected to the list.
I made a change in the code a while back to address another concern
about anonymous postings. Since the forum has to post all messages
using the same email address (although the person's Backup Central
username is given as the "real name"), I put a blurb at the end of the
post that shows the user's real email address, and also gives an email
address to forward any spam to. That seems to have assuaged any fears
of anonymous postings.
The other concern -- that of "fly by" postings -- does not appear to be
the case. For a variety of reasons, people who have joined Backup
Central to post to the forum have stuck around. They've posted other
questions and answered other people's questions.
Thank you again to all those who supported the idea by answering
questions posted via the interface. Here's to another good year in
2008.
---
W. Curtis Preston
Backup Blog @ www.backupcentral.com
VP Data Protection, GlassHouse Technologies
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