Absolutely - the federated case (I was rather active on the tolkien, c64 and various computing groups) was terrible. We used to use email lists for real discuss

Absolutely - the federated case (I was rather active on the tolkien, c64 and various computing groups) was terrible. We used to use email lists for real discussion with plain text messages (shame that isn't a thing anymore). It was an excellent experience in the non-federated case.