In message , jory bell writes >As list administrator, I strongly second what Andrew says below. I believe >it is important to keep the piclist focused on relevant technical >discussion instead of recurring administravia about newsgroups and such. >For the record, I will never put a gateway between the piclist and a >newsgroup in either direction, and discourage all others from doing so >except in their local enviromnments, etc. I like usenet a lot, but have >zero intereste in using it for this particular type of discussion, or being >involved in such an effort. > >Again, as the piclist coninues to grow in size, it is very important to >consider what you post to the list. As Andrew said the number of recipients >is over 1200 people around the world, and there have been as many as 100 >messages a day. I have several times asked some of the more seasoned list ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ wake up , smell your java, it's time for change!!! there is already spam on the list a newsgroup would be open to more people. Especially those who would not normally happen upon a mailing list (like myself). It would be more open. Or at least compromise by forwarding the mail to a newsgroup. Is there anyone out there who would be interested in this. If there are, then why not split and start our own PIC Newsgroup Faction. >members if the volume is getting too high and perhaps some change should be >made. Each time I have been told that as long as the list content remains >as technically relevant as it has been, then the volume is not a problem. >Please help maintain this track record and keep the signal to noise level >as high as possible. > >Thanks, >Jory Bell >jory@mit.edu > >>Dudes: >> >>The newsgroup-versus-maillist thread pops up here about once every >>six months... Each time, the OVERWHELMING concensus is that no one >>wants to "convert" the list to a newsgroup. >> >>Moreover, there are strong arguments even against forming an >>automated "gateway" connection between the list and a newsgroup... >>Automatically copying to the list all the crap that'll appear on the >>newsgroup will give us the worst of both worlds, and copying in the >>other direction will put all the list-members' e-mail addresses out >>in the open where they can be added to junk-mail mailing lists. >> >>If anyone wants to start a PIC-centric newsgroup, that's fine... Just >>go to news.announce.newsgroups and start the process. But don't >>expect to find a lot of support here for any connection between the >>existing list and that newsgroup. >> >>Oh... And whatever you do, please don't ever ask for a "vote" here >>on the list (on this or any other topic) without an explicit >>instruction -- repeated a couple of times in all caps, preferably -- >>that all votes are to be sent to you in PRIVATE e-mail rather than to >>the list at large. There are over 1200 members of the PICLIST; no >>one wants to read "I agree" or "I vote no" messages from each of >>them. >> >>-Andy >> >>Andrew Warren - fastfwd@ix.netcom.com >>Fast Forward Engineering, Vista, California >>http://www.geocities.com/SiliconValley/2499 -- Frank Turnpike evaluation. For information, see http://www.turnpike.com/