Sorted by subject heading, the postings have often answered my questions better than the manuals or the online help could. I am sure that I could do the same with a usenet newsgroup, but with nowhere near the ease. I am only an infrequent user of Maple, and definitely not an expert, but if keeping the MUG revolves around finding a moderator and a host computer, I'll be glad to volunteer for both. I too oppose cancelling the MUG for a chat room. Within industry, there are numerous companies that have a firewall making it impossible to get access to the comp.newsgroups.
Email list provides quick access to timely information.
I would prefer a newsgroup. The other possibility is to go to an unmoderated mailing list. This would speed up the response time, presumably lessen WMI's workload, and still provide individual mailings. The disadvantage is that this would increase the amount of email because now responses on a single topic would not be combined. It would certainly be a sad day for us if MUG disappears.