[cobalt-users] suggestion to cobalt : mail -> news (parallel)

["H.P. Stroebel" <hpstr@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

as i`m messing around with netscape (i can`t throw it out of the window,
but if i could, i WOULD do it) and did not find a good program for win
that i like, i remembered a thread some days ago where several of the
users that frequent the list regularly (including me) told that they
would prefer news to a mailing list.

i understand that it would be hard to switch over and some newbies even
may not know what news is, so i had the following idea :

--> what about a "parallel" news server only for retrieving mail ?

i`m no news guru neither do i have much experience with sendmail
directives, but shouldn`t it be possible to 

1. "subscribe" a news server to the mailing lists to keep it up to date
?
(or a sendmail directive : cc -> news:news.cobalt.com for every incoming
mail )

2. redirect incoming news (from all senders but the mailing list to
avoid a loop) to the mailing list instead supplying them directly to the
news server.
(sendmail directive : incoming mail for news.cobalt.com -> forward to
listserver)

maybe it would require a workaround and may increase the server load,
but it could decrease traffic that cobalt has to pay for.
i assume that most of the subscribers don`t read *all* mail they
receive. i personally, don`t read mail i`m not interested in (sql, asp,
frontpage e.g.) and -therefore- that i most probably can`t answer to. if
i was reading news instead of the mailing list, i would not even
download this messages, and so might think some other subscribers, too.

could be worth a thought ?

cobalt might consider that lot`s of answers that experienced users
provide in the lists concern issues that otherwise cobalt support itself
would have to deal with; and i remember several of them to prefer news
instead of mail... why not make their "work" a little bit more
comfortable ?

regards

-- 

H. P.  Stroebel, Germany

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