Foo_ (foo@nomail.com) on 5/4/08 wrote:
---------------------------
>Dean Kent (dkent@realworldtech.com) on 5/3/08 wrote:
>---------------------------
>>
>>This is the old 'centralized' vs 'distributed' problem, it seems to me. NNTP is
>>a distributed solution, so archiving and searching is local, but is not so good
>>with security and control.
>
>Indeed, and because archiving and searching is local, you only have access to archives
>for the periods of time in which you have been reading a given newsgroup. You also
>lose your archives if you happen to change your NNTP client, or wipe accidentally some contents on your hard drive, etc.
>
>With a Web-based mailing-list or forum archive, I can search messages three years
>old even if I've never read the forum before.
>

For me Google Groups non-local archiving and searching works better than any web-based forum that I ever participated. On majority of forums the search is simply broken. RWT forum search is not broken but dead slow and weak on features.