They make you log in just to see archives, which ruins any promotional and educational value your archives have.
That's not exactly true. At Yahoo, I believe this is up to the list owner. (I know my most active list there allows viewing of archives without logging in.)
At Google, it's weirder: if you're not logged into Google at all, you can often view the archives without being prompted for a login. But if you are logged into Google elsewhere, they demand you either reconfirm your login with Groups, or logout entirely, before allowing you to view to the archives.
(That's still a problem -- enough of an annoyance in fact that I wouldn't consider hosting any more groups there until it's fixed. But it seems mainly an eccentricity of their cross-site login policies, and does still offer a route to non-logged-in viewing.)
That's not exactly true. At Yahoo, I believe this is up to the list owner. (I know my most active list there allows viewing of archives without logging in.)
At Google, it's weirder: if you're not logged into Google at all, you can often view the archives without being prompted for a login. But if you are logged into Google elsewhere, they demand you either reconfirm your login with Groups, or logout entirely, before allowing you to view to the archives.
(That's still a problem -- enough of an annoyance in fact that I wouldn't consider hosting any more groups there until it's fixed. But it seems mainly an eccentricity of their cross-site login policies, and does still offer a route to non-logged-in viewing.)