Articles

[Rod Clark]

> Please elaborate. How would you propose this be done?

Andrew, 

Well, I'd hope that people would discuss it for a while, and
figure out whether they think it's a good idea to consolidate
some of them, or not. I'm probably not the only one who's
noticed that there are scattered, overlapping multiple lists
with largely the same core of subscribers. But I can't make a
change like that, and can only try to persuade people to take a
look at it. If no one else thinks the multiplicity of lists is
counterproductive, then the discussion will quickly die off and
there won't be any change in the situation. 

> >The seventeenth one that you're missing is a new one,
> Planning.
> 
> Oops, you're right! And I'm part of the committee. 

Actually, I'd like to see the planning discussions take place
among as broad a base of people and in as much daylight as
possible, for example on the scn at scn.org list. Now (excluding 
anything with "test" in it) we're down to 16 lists.

The webmasters list, which seldom has messages on it, could be 
combined with another more alive list, say services. Those 
committees already meet jointly. Now we're down to 15 lists.

What in the world is the scninfo list for? Why not combine it
with something that's actually being used? Now we're down to 14.

I'm a member of the roadshow list, and I can't remember a
single message for the past six months. This doesn't necessarily
have to be separate from outreach, does it? If not, then we're
down to 13 lists.

The overlapping messages on outreach and services were what
started this whole discussion. Maybe these two could be combined
with little loss of functionality. If so, now we're down to 12.

There's a policy list. Has anyone ever seen any discussions on
it? If users need an address to ask confidential questions to a
closed mailing list having to do with policy, they could ask
them of the scna-board list. That's probably pretty infrequent,
though. If the questions aren't of a private nature, as with
"Why don't we change the such-and-such policy?" then they could
go to the scn list for general discussion. If this makes sense,
then we're down to 11.

I'm a member of the marketplace list, but I haven't seen
messages on it for a very long time. It was supposed to be part
of outreach, anyway. If a few marketplace related questions
could be answered on a more general list every once in a while,
then we're down to 10.

The mentors have their own list, but I have no idea what they
do with it. Lots of the IPs still have outdated material, and if
the mentors aren't asking questions or solving that by working
with the people on the services list, then what's the purpose
of isolating them on a separate list, when a lot of the people
who could help them apparently don't subscribe to that list? So
quite possibly we're down to 9 lists now.

Hardware is a separate area, and it makes sense to have a list 
for those discussions.

The closed scna-board list also seems to fit its purpose well.
The fundraising list is a closed list that's separate from
scna-board.

The projects list never took off, and has never been used for
anything. So we're down to 8 lists.

The webmaster at scn.org list exists only because with a regular ID
you can't have more than 8 characters, so that was the only way
to create that mailto address.

Services1 and Services2 ...??? Assuming one of them is useful
but not both, we're down to 7 lists, and here they are:

scna-board - closed (equivalent to executive session - all other 
policy discussions should be discussed openly on the scn list)

fundraising - closed

hardware - closed

services1 - closed (maybe rename to info-providers)

services - open (outreach, roadshow, webmasters, mentors,
marketplace, projects... move the general discussions to scn)

scn - open (for general discussions, including discussions 
about planning and policy changes)

webmaster at scn.org - for a standard mailto address 
----- 

That's 7 instead of 6. I'd be comfortable with that. Maybe some
people wouldn't. Any thoughts?

Rod Clark
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