>The discussion forums are like news groups but they have a much better
>message threading system than I have seen on other services (or on any of
>the news readers).
 
Point of information:
 
Every forum I have ever read on CIS flushes its threaded discussions once a
week (unlike some of the other "online" services, BTW).
 
CIS forum discussions often appear truncated because last week's post or
question is no longer in the thread.
 
Usenet and other newsgroups are usually managed so that messages expire
after a few weeks, sometimes a few months.
 
The last time I looked at the museum-l directory, the number of CIS
addresses could be counted on the fingers of one hand (and at 25 cents per
piece of email, I understand why.)
 
Kevin Coffee
Manager of Exhibitions
American Museum of Natural History
[log in to unmask]