When I last reviewed Reference.COM (Nov. 20, 1997), it was slow, buggy and less comprehensive than advertised. I'm happy to report that it has progressed to the point where it's a useful, unique search tool. However, further improvements are necessary in several areas.
Reference.COM (http://www.reference.com) offers quick, effective searches of both newsgroups and mailing list archives. At the present time, it's the only search engine where you can search the archives of mailing lists. Although Reference.COM indexes only a small percentage of the more than 85,000 mailing lists, the lists it archives seem to cover a wide range of topics.
If you've ever spent hours trying to unsubscribe from a disappointing mailing list, you know how helpful it can be to view the contents of a list before deciding whether to join. Reference.COM gives you the ability to browse the current posts of mailing lists that it archives.
Directories of Newsgroups and Mailing Lists - Reference.COM provides searchable directories of newsgroups and mailing lists. While these directories will help you locate groups that interest you, they don't present results as clearly, informatively or attractively as do Deja News (for newsgroups) and, Liszt (for mailing lists). Most of the lists in Reference.COM's directory of mailing lists are not archived.
Directory of Web Forums? - Reference.COM's forum directory wasn't working when I tried to search it several times in early May. (More about web forums later in the review of Forum One.)
Newsgroup Search Features
Reference.COM archives all 20,000 Usenet newsgroups (except alt.binaries) as compared with Deja News' 50,000. It offers searching only to the beginning of 1998, in contrast with 1995 for Deja News.
Many of the search capacities available in Deja News (such as author profile and the ability to display conversational threads), are also supported by Reference.COM. However, Reference.COM provides some features that Deja News doesn't offer.
List of Sources - For example, after you do a keyword search in the newsgroup and mailing list archives, you're given a list of all the sources (newsgroups and mailing lists) that your resulting posts are derived from. Selecting one of these sources will prompt Reference COM to restrict your keyword search to that group.
Information About Newsgroups and Mailing Lists - You'll see an i printed after each mailing list or newsgroup in the list of sources. Click on this i and you'll get information about the particular mailing list or newsgroup.
