🚀 go-pugleaf

> On 29 Jan 2003 19:09:02 -0800, twentydollarnosejob@yahoo.com ($20 Nose Job)
> wrote:
> 
> >"A. Holnitz" <andyh34@hotmail.com> wrote in message
> >news:<R5zZ9.2087$lg6.897491174@newssvr13.news.prodigy.com>...
> >> Most L.A. restaurant discussion has moved to Chowhound.com.
> >
> >I know you love Chowhound. Many of us don't. Do you really need to
> >troll through la.eats for new users?

And "Chowhound" is like nearly all of the Web-based chat forums, Yahoo
Groups, etc. It has an idiosyncratic format which makes most techniques
learned with newsgroups unusable (e.g., posting articles is different
in Chowhound, Yahoo Food Forum, etc.).

Any look at Chowhound will see that there is very little discussion,
just isolated restaurant reports. None of the repartee and dissent one
finds in the best of the newsgroups (ba.food being a lot more active
than la.eats, for example). 

A lot of Web-based fora become saturated with advertisements--on the
sides, across the top, scattered amongst the text, and now in pop-ups.
Yahoo Groups is especially bad in this way, with annoying ad banners in
many places on the screen and obtrusive pop-ups saying: "This site is
supported by advertising...click here to download an annoying Flash
animation before being allowed to proceed to the next article."

One advantage that Chowhound does have is that people can check up on
restaurants in areas they may not know the newsgroup for (for instance,
someone travelling to Buffalo may not know if there is a newsgroup
dedicated to Buffalo). However, Google Groups has made finding
references to more obscure geographic areas, like Buffalo, a lot easier
to find.

But, having spent time with Chowhound and with my home food newsgroup,
ba.food, I have to say that Chowhound is a pale imitation of a real
newsgroup.

--Tim May