Hi John,

>Since we are on the topic of comparing interfaces, what aspect of the CIS interface is more appealing than what is found here? Once of the nice things here is that I can pull up EVERY post I have ever made. Also, I can create my own folders for managing messages. The ability to search for messages here is far superior to what can be found on CIS. The threaded message paradigm works just as well on the UT as it does on CIS.

Let me clarify a few things:

a) On CompuServe you are not limited to only one online and one offline interface. There're various online-readers out there, as well as many offline readers. Some like Virutal Access also allow access to newsgroup in the same pass.

b) We have a forum archive available for download going back to September 1997. And if there's the demand we can post older archives as well. The archives are in DBF format unencrypted and read records are not marked as deleted. This archive is free and was never intended to appear on a commercial CD.

c) I've half a dozen folders for messages in addition to store messages in DBF files. How much you can manage depends on the software you use. Since most software allows you to export files into a FBD format, you can do it any way you want, even store them on a SQL server, passing them back as an XML file and displaying them on your intranet, if you want. :)

d) In CIS I can search messages in every range, not only in steps of half a year and the are shown in any order I want, not in a strange order that partly bases on the time.

I remember well the discussions you had here about providing _facts_ in messages and not guessing, especially when MVP makes comments and remarks. I'd like to ask you to follow your own rules and don't make unqualified comments about CompuServe. Please don't take this offensive, the last thing this forum needs is another flame war. There have been to many in the past.

Please let come to a constructive way of handling our fora. On CompuServe I don't keep telling people how bad I think the UT is, and if I think that a message has a better chance to get a reply here I point them to the UT. While I can't expect you to do the same, but...

BTW, I just found this thread and I'm currently going through it. If you have taken back any of your comments in another message, I apologize in advance.

Christof
Sysop in MSDEVAPP