Regarding mailing lists, newsgroups, etc.

["Robert G. Brown" <bob@xxxxxxx>]

I am combining a number of replies into one (longish) message, which will
give those who don't care only one message to ignore, and will serve as a 
comprehensive response to those who are interested.

>Scott Yellig <syellig@klug.armintl.com> Wrote:
>Man, i leave for a morning, and suddenly theres all this talk about
>starting a bunch of specific lists, and moderation! :)
Well, don't go away! :)

>Personaly, I dont mind getting a lot of email from the group...
Yeah, me neither, actually, of all the grouping of email that I get, KLUG is
about the SMALLEST.

>...One for announceing meeting topics, and one for all the general Geek
>Chatter....
I see a need for more, but it hardly matters. If we need two now, you'll
agree we'll probably need three someday. Part of my claim here is that
we ought not think in terns of TWO lists (or groups) but of several.

>As a useful side effect of breaking the list
>up, we could easily archive the announcement list into something sane, and
>post it to our web server.
True enough. I don't see a LOT of value in this, perhaps others do. I would
prefer to see our own FAQ-list, which could be distilled from the archives.


>The possible exception that i see is making a list for current group
>projects ....
Yeah, it'll depend how long a project lasts.

>3f. moderation
>3e. Autosending files to new subscribers (we can send out a FAQ when
>	people join)
Which doesn't help existing users when we update a FAQ.

>3c.Restricting submissions

All fine. Look, this is a tool. We need to decidewhat we want to do first,
then we can review this tool (or others) and decide what to do.

>Contents:
>---------       1. Creating and removing mailinglists...
I didn't understand the posting of this (content-free) table of contents.

>>1. All members of any KLUG mailing list should get stuff sent out via a
>>   "klug-announce" mailing list.
>OK.. Im not sure exactly why the current software would not support this.
I don't know (without reading the manual, not a TOC) what the current soft-
ware does or does not support, but I do know that I've been on overlapping
mailing lists numerous times, and got duplicates, which is annoying.

>Theres a couple way that we could make sure the announcements get to
>everyone.....
That's fine, but not quantity, content, and it's not two groups, think 
multiples...

>>   I don't know about moderated groups...
>Im thinking about maybe an announce group where things can be only sent by
>me (or the listserv user, or whatever)....
>As far as moderation, my only objection is that I wouldnt want to have to
>decides who should be heard and who shouldnt. I wouldnt want to have
>anyone else decide this, either.
These are conflicting desires. You either have a moderated list (or group),
or you don't. I think we can all use an announcements mailing list with 
restraint, so I tend to oppose closed lists unless they're abused.

In a voluntary group, it is wise not to have ONE person responsible for this, 
since ONE person goes away, on vacation, drifts away, etc.

I would like you to consider that there is a number of lists (or groups)
that we need. I beleive this number is more than two, but considerably less
than 20 (as someone has suggested). I do not pretend to know that number, but
if we think in somewhat more general terms, we'll adopt a framework that
lends itself to this sort of flexibility.

>>2. I see a lot of traffic that I think of as "newbie Q&A"...
>IMHO, it WOULD infact push these questions off into the corner, but who
>knows.
IMO thhat depends if you're a member of the group or not. Consider that from
a global standpoint, this whole GROUP is "off in the corner". Perhaps we're
heading toward a world full of corners, into and out of which people drift
as needs demand.

{3 ommitted since Mr. Yellig and this author agree.}

>>4. On a point related to item 2, it may be useful to develop a local Linux
>>   FAQ list.....
>>   Imagine the benefit of a well-run mailing list for new Linux users...
>Hmm.. as long as armintl doesnt mind paying moveing all the bits around,
>sure, we can help people all over the world.
Yes, we can, but I believe that's already being done, and we're probably not 
going to do it any better.  There's room to develop a local Linux FAQ-list,
based on the questions that WE see, right here. Our prticular mix of questions,
issues, and problems, is not handled cleanly by many of the global lists, and 
they're decentralized and hard for some people to find. KLUG can be a local 
information source for those who need a boost right away.

>Bruce Smith <bruce@armintl.com> Wrote:
>There is another way to do this, that nobody has mentioned yet.

>We could do away with chatter on the mailing list by running our
>own news server on the KLUG box.  Keep the mailing list just for
>announcements (maybe restrict it), and start our own newsgroup(s)
>to talk about Linux.
>
>I personally find a newsgroup easier to read than a mailing list
>because you can get a list of messages sorted by thread, and nuke
>threads that are not of interest.  (like going to Gateway! :)
>
>Questions, comments, flames . . .  ?

While reading some of the earlier postings to the list today, I was 
thinking that this would be a good idea. We do not need to run anything 
nearly as heavy-duty as INN or DNEWS on our server. I would suggest that
we use NNTPCACHE, which is the package that Adam and I have used for
USENET.  I don't know how well we would do woth this, since the server
box is small, but it is worth a try. NNTPCACHE will also post news, not
simply download it, so we don't need any of those big time packages, or
invest a lot more resources, time, money, or masochism.

Mailing lists are superior to newgroups for some things; group announcements
being a perfect example. Reminders, by definition, need to be "pushed" to the
readers, and an announcement mailing list provides it. Newsgroups, web sites,
are both "pull" items, useful for other things, but not nessesarily as an
assured way of reaching people in a limited timeframe.

ANOTHER SOLUTION
We do have in our midst a couple of representatives for at least a couple of 
ISPs. Net-Link has had a newsgroup which is called "net-link.linux" for some 
time. In essence, we could use that newsgroup (which is dormant) for different 
threads of discussion, and use the KLUG mailing list facility for group
announcements and organizational matters.  This reduces the load on our little
server, AND increases the visibility of our technical content. If net-link is
not able to do this, perhaps some other ISP (Iserve, or ICS) would find them-0
selves able to do this?

If some of the ISP people who get this message can comment, it might solve a
lot of this in a hurry.

                                                        Regards,
                                                           ---> RGB <---