[aclug-L] mailing lists

[Jeff Vian <jvian10@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

A comment was made about someone (I think it was people outside the
local area) commenting that they felt this list has too much discussion
on purely local topics.

I do not understand anyone saying this list has too much traffic.
There has been more discussion on this list in the last 10 days (>200
messages) than in the last 3 months (<100 messages), and all of it has
been related to the problems with ACLUG and the need to improve it.

I for one have noted the drop in discussion resently and feel that a new
list would hurt the free discussion here by hiding from the community
what has been kept private.  Since this is an organization wide list,
anything related to ACLUG or the Linux community should be here.
        I do not disagree with the thought that what affects (only) the local
meetings is off-topic for the entire group. I simply feel that a new
list may be more harm than help. One-on-one discussions and directed
communication is a lot less impersonal than sending a message to a
"list", and makes the participants more likely to think and participate.
It eliminates the ability to just ignore what is not directed to them
personally. A list removes the personal communication factor and urgency
from the discussion.

The argument for a local "management" discussion list will hurt the
entire organization.  If someone needs to discuss something with the
members of the committee or a select few the onus should be on the
originator to decide who to include in his address list.  Active
participants are known to the group running the organization and thus
they already know who to incluude in the discussions.
 A separate list for the "locals" will inherently detract from the
community wide discusssion on this list because most of us are lazy and
will send things to a list we are familiar with and not to more than one
list, even if it is of interest to all. Using a list takes the need to
think away from the sender and puts control in the hands of the list
manager. This becomes even more apparrent when the approval of who
should be on the list is in the hands of a select group. It can be
manipulated (and not always intentionally) for the benefit of the group.

<getting off the soap box>

I for one plan to do my best to keep this organization alive and useful
to the entire linux community.

Jeff
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