From steve at advocate.net  Thu Oct  1 08:24:34 1998
From: steve at advocate.net (Steve)
Date: Thu, 1 Oct 1998 07:24:34 -0800
Subject: Big bucks communities
Message-ID: <199810011434.HAA26806@scn.org>

What's Igniting Online Communities

Jesse Berst, Editorial Director
ZDNet AnchorDesk 10/1/98


What is the germ that can gather an Internet community? 

That's the multimillion-dollar question as leading Internet companies
spend fortunes in an attempt to spark online communities. They are
exploring at least six different methods to create the core of a
community. 

Homesteads. Give people a free plot of land in cyberspace (a free
home page), then let them gather into neighborhoods of interest.
GeoCities is the best known of these sites. Other favorites include
Tripod and WhoWhere (both now owned by Lycos) and theglobe.com. In
addition, most of the major portal sites are adding free home pages
to their mix.

Special Interests. Attract users based on common interests. The
Mining Company, Suite101.com and Deja News are just a few of the
sites using specialized content to attract viewers... who then, it is
hoped, will stick around and join in community activities. In
addition, many hubs and mini-portals -- finance, health, computing,
entertainment, sports -- are lightning rods for community. 

Chat. Give people an easier way to find and talk to like-minded
people. They will form ad hoc special interest groups and extend into
other community activities. This has been an active category lately.
Media powerhouses, including NBC, Hearst Corp. and Cox Interactive
Media, recently ponied up $34 million to TalkCity. And Electronic
Communities bought OnLive and The Palace.

Navigation. Get people in the habit of starting their Internet
experience at your portal. Then make it easy for them to navigate
into a community. Microsoft is the latest example, this week beefing
up its MSN portal with 120 community areas. Excite, Yahoo, Infoseek
and Netcenter are other portals heading down the community path. 

Geography. Extend a real-life community into cyberspace. Local
newspapers and television stations have tried this tack, as have some
of the city guides. Examples include the Total New York, Cox Media's
city guides, KOZ's Townonline in the Boston area and New York Today. 

Commerce. Similar to special interest publishing, except the
commonality comes from purchasing a certain type of product.
Amazon.com is the best example, but you can also find music, travel,
electronics and other commerce sites that are coalescing into
communities. 

In all these cases, companies are looking for the magnet that will
draw a critical mass, for the magic formula that will form the
nucleus of a true community. 

Why are they working so hard and spending so much? To lock you in.
The idea is to be the first to assemble a critical mass of customers.
Through the phenomenon of "network effects" -- the more people who
belong to a network, the more people want to belong, as in the fax
network -- they create a barrier to other companies. 

Once they've got you locked in -- and most people are loathe to
change once they've found an online home -- then they can charge
other companies for access to you. As America Online has done so
successfully already.
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From bk846 at scn.org  Thu Oct  1 12:41:01 1998
From: bk846 at scn.org (Bill S)
Date: Thu, 1 Oct 1998 12:41:01 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: Pine controversy
In-Reply-To: <Pine.SUN.3.96.980929185101.14972E-100000@scn>
Message-ID: <Pine.SUN.3.96.981001121952.21507A-100000@scn>

On Tue, 29 Sep 1998, Lorraine Pozzi wrote:
                <snip>
> 
> A couple of questions...
> 
> Does Speakeasy still charge a fee for Pine classes?  And how come
> Speakeasy users were happy to shell out $$$$ to learn this
> extremely "difficult" program when we can't give it away?
         <snip>
Yes, Speakeasy does still run their classes on Saturdays and Sundays. The
new user orientation which includes PINE is $25.00. They include a hard
copy Pine manual with the class. They also offer a bunch of classes on
HTML, web design etc. 

As I noted recently most afternoons and early evenings when I am at the
cafe or one of the RAIN site VT100 terminals around town there are people
waiting in line to use this "extremely difficult" e-mail program. Seems to
be no problem for at least most to pay $10.- a month to have an account
which includes shell access, Lynx, Pine and a wide variety of newsgroups.
They are using Pine 4.03 which has a lot of neat added bells and whistles
that are nice to have. Of course they have paid staff to run and update
their system.

Maybe they know something we don't ??????   No, I'm not suggesting
anything that would effect the 501C3 status but maybe there's something to
be learned.

> 
> Lorraine
> femme2 at scn.org
> 

Bill S
bk846 at scn.org        
billhs at speakeasy.org

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From jmabel at saltmine.com  Thu Oct  1 13:08:09 1998
From: jmabel at saltmine.com (Joe Mabel)
Date: Thu, 1 Oct 1998 13:08:09 -0700
Subject: Pine controversy
Message-ID: <01BDED3C.8A1C67E0.jmabel@saltmine.com>

I'll say it once again: There's nothing wrong with Pine if you are just 
sending and receiving text email.  If, however, like a growing number of 
people, you are working in the Windows world, it's another story.

1) Windows programs have many features you can take for granted. Pine 
doesn't coincide with these.  Two trivial examples:
- if it's your reflex to hit <Home> to getto the beginning of the line, you 
have to engage the conscious brain to hit <Ctrl>-A.
- if it's your reflex to position the cursor with the mouse, you expect to 
be able to start typing into text where you just clicked.
I, for one, like to keep my conscious thinking on what I'm saying it, not 
on my tools.

2) In (say) Outlook, I can drag a file into my email and have an 
attachment.  I don't need to think about the file name.

3) If I'm in my (visual) browser and I want to copy the URL I'm looking at 
into an email, I select, copy, and paste.  Frankly, I can't even tell you 
the steps I'd have to take to get that into Pine without retyping. I'm sure 
there's a way, but I've never had the patience to work it out.

Pine is a good tool for what it is, but it's not the only email tool worth 
knowing about.  We need to help our users solve the problems they've got, 
not provide one all-purpose solution & say "if this doesn't fit you, you're 
not our target."

-----Original Message-----
From:	Bill S [SMTP:bk846 at scn.org]
Sent:	Thursday, October 01, 1998 12:41 PM
To:	Lorraine Pozzi
Cc:	Rod Clark; Al Boss; scn at scn.org
Subject:	Re: Pine controversy

On Tue, 29 Sep 1998, Lorraine Pozzi wrote:
                <snip>
>
> A couple of questions...
>
> Does Speakeasy still charge a fee for Pine classes?  And how come
> Speakeasy users were happy to shell out $$$$ to learn this
> extremely "difficult" program when we can't give it away?
         <snip>
Yes, Speakeasy does still run their classes on Saturdays and Sundays. The
new user orientation which includes PINE is $25.00. They include a hard
copy Pine manual with the class. They also offer a bunch of classes on
HTML, web design etc.

As I noted recently most afternoons and early evenings when I am at the
cafe or one of the RAIN site VT100 terminals around town there are people
waiting in line to use this "extremely difficult" e-mail program. Seems to
be no problem for at least most to pay $10.- a month to have an account
which includes shell access, Lynx, Pine and a wide variety of newsgroups.
They are using Pine 4.03 which has a lot of neat added bells and whistles
that are nice to have. Of course they have paid staff to run and update
their system.

Maybe they know something we don't ??????   No, I'm not suggesting
anything that would effect the 501C3 status but maybe there's something to
be learned.

>
> Lorraine
> femme2 at scn.org
>

Bill S
bk846 at scn.org
billhs at speakeasy.org

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From billhs at speakeasy.org  Thu Oct  1 22:09:32 1998
From: billhs at speakeasy.org (Bill Scott)
Date: Thu, 1 Oct 1998 22:09:32 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: Pine controversy
In-Reply-To: <01BDED3C.8A1C67E0.jmabel@saltmine.com>
Message-ID: <Pine.SUN.4.03.9810012133380.28777-100000@eve.speakeasy.org>

Joe;

I hope I don't sound like Pine is the answer to all the world's problems,
obviously that's not the case. Some people are obviously more comfortable with
Outlook, Eudora, Netscape Communicator or who knows how many others. There may
even be a few left who actually like to do their mail while in Emacs. There is
no one wonderful perfect mail agent for everyone.

The point of my comment back to Lorraine was that Pine has been described
as "extremely difficult" and "too hard for new users to learn".  I don't think
that's accurate. The experience at Speakeasy dealing with 'Joe Average' as
well as lots of students at the UW who have Pine provided to them indicates that
it is a quite usable way to handle e-mail for lots of people. There are plenty
of commercial ISPs that provide Pine as the e-mail program of choice.

I hope that in time we can make PPP or Slip connections available to those who
want them. At that point users will be able to use just about any mail program
they want to, which will no doubt add to the confusion of training the new
folks, but is still a good idea. As far as I know that's not something that can
be accomplished in the near future. We have only a few people who have the
skills to implement PPP or Slip on our system and they unfortunately have real
lives, day jobs etc. that take up some of their time. Until that can be
accomplished Pine seems to be a quite workable way to provide e-mail on SCN. We
need to figure out better ways to provide introductory training for new users
(and old ones too if needed). Acting like Pine was developed by an Ogre
conjured up by the Wicked Witch of the West doesn't get us anywhere - It's here,
it works, it's supported and it should serve the purpose until other things are
available. And by the way PINE 4.03 does some new things with URLs that might
interest some, along with some other new bells and whistles. Don't know but I'd
bet we'll see that version long before we see PPP connections.

Bill S
billhs at speakeasy.org  "Two of the most famous products of U.C. Berkeley
bk846 at scn.org          are LSD and UNIX. Is this a coincidence ? "


On Thu, 1 Oct 1998, Joe Mabel wrote:

> I'll say it once again: There's nothing wrong with Pine if you are just 
> sending and receiving text email.  If, however, like a growing number of 
> people, you are working in the Windows world, it's another story.
> 
> 1) Windows programs have many features you can take for granted. Pine 
> doesn't coincide with these.  Two trivial examples:
> - if it's your reflex to hit <Home> to getto the beginning of the line, you 
> have to engage the conscious brain to hit <Ctrl>-A.
> - if it's your reflex to position the cursor with the mouse, you expect to 
> be able to start typing into text where you just clicked.
> I, for one, like to keep my conscious thinking on what I'm saying it, not 
> on my tools.
> 
> 2) In (say) Outlook, I can drag a file into my email and have an 
> attachment.  I don't need to think about the file name.
> 
> 3) If I'm in my (visual) browser and I want to copy the URL I'm looking at 
> into an email, I select, copy, and paste.  Frankly, I can't even tell you 
> the steps I'd have to take to get that into Pine without retyping. I'm sure 
> there's a way, but I've never had the patience to work it out.
> 
> Pine is a good tool for what it is, but it's not the only email tool worth 
> knowing about.  We need to help our users solve the problems they've got, 
> not provide one all-purpose solution & say "if this doesn't fit you, you're 
> not our target."
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From:	Bill S [SMTP:bk846 at scn.org]
> Sent:	Thursday, October 01, 1998 12:41 PM
> To:	Lorraine Pozzi
> Cc:	Rod Clark; Al Boss; scn at scn.org
> Subject:	Re: Pine controversy
> 
> On Tue, 29 Sep 1998, Lorraine Pozzi wrote:
>                 <snip>
> >
> > A couple of questions...
> >
> > Does Speakeasy still charge a fee for Pine classes?  And how come
> > Speakeasy users were happy to shell out $$$$ to learn this
> > extremely "difficult" program when we can't give it away?
>          <snip>
> Yes, Speakeasy does still run their classes on Saturdays and Sundays. The
> new user orientation which includes PINE is $25.00. They include a hard
> copy Pine manual with the class. They also offer a bunch of classes on
> HTML, web design etc.
> 
> As I noted recently most afternoons and early evenings when I am at the
> cafe or one of the RAIN site VT100 terminals around town there are people
> waiting in line to use this "extremely difficult" e-mail program. Seems to
> be no problem for at least most to pay $10.- a month to have an account
> which includes shell access, Lynx, Pine and a wide variety of newsgroups.
> They are using Pine 4.03 which has a lot of neat added bells and whistles
> that are nice to have. Of course they have paid staff to run and update
> their system.
> 
> Maybe they know something we don't ??????   No, I'm not suggesting
> anything that would effect the 501C3 status but maybe there's something to
> be learned.
> 
> >
> > Lorraine
> > femme2 at scn.org
> >
> 
> Bill S
> bk846 at scn.org
> billhs at speakeasy.org
> 
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> 
> 
> 

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From allen at scn.org  Thu Oct  1 23:09:06 1998
From: allen at scn.org (allen)
Date: Thu, 1 Oct 1998 23:09:06 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: Big bucks communities
In-Reply-To: <199810011434.HAA26806@scn.org>
Message-ID: <Pine.SUN.3.91.981001230359.29847A-100000@scn>

hmmm.  an interesting aside to this...is there is now software available that
will block your browser from downloading advertisements and cookies...and 
other things as well...which will make loading many web pages much faster...
and begin to offset the commercialism of the WWW in some messure.  check
out  www.atguard.com

On Thu, 1 Oct 1998, Steve wrote:

> Date: Thu, 1 Oct 1998 07:24:34 -0800
> From: Steve <steve at advocate.net>
> To: scn at scn.org
> Subject: Big bucks communities
> 
> What's Igniting Online Communities
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From steve at advocate.net  Fri Oct  2 07:23:12 1998
From: steve at advocate.net (Steve)
Date: Fri, 2 Oct 1998 06:23:12 -0800
Subject: Feminists & filtering
Message-ID: <199810021332.GAA28745@scn.org>



In Library Filtering Case, an Unusual Ally

Carl S. Kaplan
NY Times 10/2/98


In a closely watched First Amendment case, supporters of Internet
filtering in libraries have found an unexpected ally -- a group of
maverick feminists who say that libraries should use
pornography-blocking software to help prevent sexual harassment of
library employees. 

"The display of Internet pornography in a public place does
constitute sexual harassment," Marie-Jose Ragab, president of the
Dulles, Va., chapter of the National Organization for Women (NOW),
said in an interview this week. 

"It creates a hostile work environment for the librarians" who might
see pornographic images on library terminals that do not have
filtering software, she said. 

Ragab's local NOW chapter, which has about 100 members, filed a
pro-filtering friend of the court brief three weeks ago in a
controversial filtering case involving the library system of Loudoun
County in Virginia. 

That landmark legal dispute involves a challenge by some residents of
Loudoun County and some Web site publishers to the local library's
policy of requiring filtering software on all its public terminals --
including terminals used by adults -- in an attempt to create a
pornography-free library zone. The lawsuit mirrors similar battles
playing out in schools and libraries across the country. 

Opponents of the filtering policy include People for the American
Way, a civil liberties organization that represents a group of local
library patrons, and the American Civil Liberties Union, representing
a handful of Web site publishers. They have argued in preliminary
legal rounds that the library's policy violates the First Amendment
rights of adults. 

They also contend that the commercial software filter used by the
Loudoun library, X-Stop, not only blocks smut but also blocks
protected speech, such as the Quaker Home Page, the Zero Population
Growth Web site and the site for the Maryland chapter of the American
Association of University Women. The library board counters that the
software's imperfections, if any, are reasonable under the
circumstances, especially given what they view as the their right to
keep pornography out of the library. 

The case is pending in Federal District Court in Alexandria, Va.,
before Judge Leonie M. Brinkema. A trial is scheduled for October 14.
All sides recently submitted motions to the court to resolve the case
before trial, and a decision on those motions is expected shortly. 

In an earlier ruling in the case, the judge appeared sympathetic to
the anti- filtering side when she refused to dismiss the lawsuit. She
said the First Amendment "fully applies to, and limits, the
discretion of a public library to place content-based restrictions on
access to constitutionally protected materials within its
collection." 

NOW's friend of the court filing was also joined by Richard H. Black,
a former trustee of the Loudoun County Library Board and author of
its filtering policy, as well as a host of local religious groups and
conservative organizations. They argued that the library had a duty
to avoid creating an employment environment that would be unlawful
under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. 

That law, among other things, requires employers to exercise
reasonable care to prevent and correct sexually harassing behavior,
which can lead to employee discrimination on the basis of gender. 

"[E]xplicitly or constructively forcing librarians to deal with
displays of pornography could result in the development of a hostile
or abusive workplace," the filing said. 

Ragab, who has been president of the Dulles-area NOW chapter for 12
years, said she expects the Loudoun filtering case to reach the
Supreme Court. 

"We want the Supreme Court to rule on how far First Amendment rights
may go before they infringe on sexual harassment laws," she said.
"This is what is of interest to us. That is why we went along with
Dick Black and the group of conservatives. There is a clash between
the First Amendment and Title VII, and the Supreme Court must address
that." 

The Dulles-area NOW chapter is a "rebellious" group within the larger
NOW hierarchy, Ragab conceded. In June, for example, the small group
filed a friend of the court brief on its own supporting Paula Jones's
sexual harassment lawsuit against President Clinton. 

That move caught the eye of Black, a member of the Virginia House of
Delegates and a leader of the pro-filtering faction in Loudoun
County. A self-proclaimed "conservative Republican," Black said he
called Ragab and suggested the two might share some common ground on
the issue of library filtering and sexual harassment. After
conferring with her fellow NOW members, Ragab agreed to participate
in the Loudoun amicus brief. 

Now, Ragab said she hopes her local's gadfly stance prompts the
national NOW organization and other feminist groups to see a
connection between Internet pornography and sexual harassment. But
that may be an idle wish. Loretta King, a spokeswoman for NOW, said
the national organization "is not involved in any way" with the
Loudoun lawsuit. 

The president of the statewide Virginia NOW, Connie Hannah, also
distanced herself from the Dulles group's efforts, noting that the
state organization issued a statement last June that strongly opposed
Internet filtering. She said that while the Virginia NOW opposes
sexual harassment in all its forms, library filtering was a flawed
and constitutionally suspect solution. 

Ragab's stance "puts our organization in a very difficult position,"
Hannah said. 

Lawrence S. Ottinger, a lawyer with People for the American Way who
is involved in the Loudoun case, said in a recent interview that the
sexual harassment defense of the library policy was a "sham and a
pretext for censorship." 

He said there was no evidence that patrons in Loudoun County had
accessed pornography on the Internet and that library staff were
bothered by it. 

To the extent that the library is concerned about its staff seeing
sexual images, the best solution, Ottinger said, is to locate the
computer terminals in an out-of-the-way spot and install "privacy
screens" that allow users to view the terminals but limit inadvertent
viewing by others. The statewide Virginia NOW also supports library
privacy screens as a means to prevent any viewing that could be
construed as harassment. 

Libraries have always had a policy that addressed misbehavior by
patrons, added Ann Beeson, a staff lawyer with the ACLU. Those
policies, she said, could be used to stop obvious abuses of Internet
access which could make staff members feel they were being harassed. 

"In terms of filtering being the answer, it couldn't be a worse fit,"
Beeson said. 

She noted that at a preliminary hearing in the case last week, Judge
Brinkema told the lawyer for the Dulles-area NOW, Melissa
Wells-Petry, that the organization would most likely be upset if a
software filter inaccurately blocked out the NOW site. 

Copyright 1998 The New York Times Company 




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From stefani at spban.ndip.eskimo.net  Fri Oct  2 15:19:49 1998
From: stefani at spban.ndip.eskimo.net (Stefani Banerian)
Date: Fri, 2 Oct 1998 15:19:49 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: Pine controversy, and e-mail Fwd: User Friendly [humor] (fwd)
Message-ID: <Pine.LNX.3.96.981002151807.4587A-100000@spban.ndip.eskimo.net>


now, for user-friendly software.....


---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Fri, 2 Oct 1998 13:43:23 -0700

http://www.userfriendly.org/cartoons/98sep/19980906.html


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From be718 at scn.org  Sat Oct  3 01:52:12 1998
From: be718 at scn.org (Rich Littleton)
Date: Sat, 3 Oct 1998 01:52:12 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: Random Sampling of e-mail services.
Message-ID: <Pine.SUN.3.96.981003014452.21676B-100000@scn>


Below is a list of recipients of messages from a jazz band.  Since it is a
compilation of jazz lovers, I think it can give us some useful insight
into the percentage of e-mailers who use what e-mail system.  It is not
large enough to be a reliable sampling.  Also, it might reflect a moneyed
level of society. 

However, for what it's worth, I am the only SCN user in the whole list.

______________________________________________________________________

*****  Unless stated otherwise, this message may be forwarded.  ******

---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Mon, 28 Sep 1998 11:24:49 -0700
From: "Joseph L. Koplin" <mnk at seanet.com>
To: 'Amy Adair' <adairs at msn.com>, 'Andrea Darvas' <heldar at ix.netcom.com>,
    "'Andrew J. Kinstler'" <akinstler at helsell.com>,
    'Andy Weiner' <lglgolfer at aol.com>,
    'Ann Bishop' <abishop at wallaceproperties.com>,
    'Anthony Saloy' <ALPLSALOY at aol.com>, 'Arif Khan' <arif at accessone.com>,
    'Arthur Dorros' <arthurbook at aol.com>,
    'Barry Corliss' <bcorliss at halcyon.com>,
    'Brian Lynch' <bishlaw at wolfenet.com>,
    'Bruce Ridley' <bridley at sisna.com>,
    'Bruce Singer' <saltcreek at redshift.com>,
    'Carole McBride' <cmcbride at accessone.com>,
    'Charlie Wiggins' <charlie at c-wiggins.com>,
    'Christine Foster' <cfoster at fosterlawoffice.com>,
    'Cliff Luden' <c4loans at concentric.net>,
    'Dave Magarrell' <dave at scarffisuzu.com>,
    'David and Judith Minzel' <csrh at oz.net>,
    'Dinnae McGee' <mcryan at gte.net>, 'Ed McCoy' <mccoylaw at msn.com>,
    'Elizabeth Alexander' <kpc at nwlink.com>,
    "'Elizabeth K. Reeve'" <ekr at schwabe.com>,
    'Elizabeth Pantley' <elizabeth at pantley.com>,
    'Elliott Norse' <enorse at u.washington.edu>,
    'Glen Sayes' <dataflo at wolfenet.com>,
    'Greg and Brenda Winters' <gbwinter at telebyte.net>,
    'Jane Donat' <jfdonat at aol.com>, 'Jane Fantel' <jfantel at lopezfantel.com>,
    'Jane Larimer Rial' <janerial at larimarketing.com>,
    'Jason Kunz' <jason at worthingtoninsurance.com>,
    'Jay Hodge' <jdhodge at coldwellbanker.com>,
    'Jay Krulewitcdh' <thekrule at aol.com>,
    'Jennifer Britton' <jbritton at u.washington.edu>,
    'Jerry and Laurel Jones' <hoc at grayservices.com>,
    "'Jerry Gray, Sr.'" <jlg at eskimo.com>,
    'Jim Hennessey' <jhennessey at smithleary.com>,
    'Jim Junker' <craddock at aol.com>,
    'Jim Kukull' <75452.3543 at compuserve.com>,
    'Jim Ragona' <jragona at feldinc.com>, 'Jim Stockheld' <rhino1 at gte.net>,
    'Jim Wilke' <jwilke at u.washington.edu>,
    'Joan Wallace' <jwallace at wallaceproperties.com>,
    'John Acheson' <amed at gte.net>, 'John Eakins' <johnteakins at msn.com>,
    'John Shervey' <John at vertekinc.com>,
    'Jonathan Shuval' <jshuval at hotmail.com>,
    'Judith Sentz' <judy.sentz at barclaydean.com>,
    'Karen Ball' <karen at osc-voc.com>,
    'Karli Jorgenson and Tom Everts' <karli at ebinw.com>,
    'Katrina Becker' <paralegal at gocougs.wsu.edu>,
    'Keith McClelland' <lawbiz at juno.com>,
    'Laurie and Blair Pessemier' <paintfox at aol.com>,
    'Lenny Busch' <lenny at macintosh.com>,
    'Lisa Whitson' <lwhitson at helsell.com>,
    'Loretta Vosk' <mstifel at u.washington.edu>,
    'Malcolm Harris' <mharr at halcyon.com>,
    'Marc Stern' <mstern07 at counsel.com>,
    'Mark Davis' <mwdavis at curranlaw.com>, 'Mark Lee' <groovelee at aol.com>,
    "'Michael Downey, D.C.'" <mwdowney at juno.com>,
    'Michael Feinberg' <mfeinberg at karrtuttle.com>,
    'Mike Gruskin' <MiniBarns at compuserve.com>,
    'Mike O'Bryan' <raider at wizards.net>, 'Nancy Slick' <beechrmr at serv.net>,
    "'Pam Barnard @ Allied Investigations'" <allied at foxinternet.com>,
    'Paul Gianattasio' <cosmo at lawresearch.com>,
    'Paul Shoemaker' <paulshoe at svp.org>,
    'Peter Ehrlichman' <EhrlP at foster.com>, 'Randy Gordon' <rig at halcyon.com>,
    'Ray Steiner' <rrsteiner at aol.com>, 'Rich Littleton' <be718 at scn.org>,
    'Rik Lewis' <racerx at accessone.com>,
    'Rob Williamson/Kim Williams' <RWillia256 at aol.com>,
    'Robert Pantley' <robert at pantley.com>,
    'Sarah Hoagland' <scenge at aol.com>, 'Sid Starr' <sid at sidstarrcpa.com>,
    'Stan Cole' <salstan at worldnet.att.net>,
    'Steve Jager' <sjj at leesmart.com>, 'Steve Meeks' <sbrandt3 at aol.com>,
    'Steve Nakasone' <nakasone_sm at pillsburylaw.com>,
    'Susan Bluhm' <sbluhm at trvlsource.com>,
    'Temple Carpenter' <75763.2102 at compuserve.com>,
    'Teresa Herrin' <THerrin at herrincpa.com>,
    'Terry and Judy Morgan' <mrra at aol.com>,
    'Tim and Norma Dooley' <NormaDoo at aol.com>,
    'Tim Moebes' <moebes at arsoftware.com>,
    'Tina Haddeland' <thaddeland at aol.com>, 'Todd Elliott' <cbc at seanet.com>,
    'Tom Dreiling' <winsome at dycom.net>, 'Tom Field' <tfield at quickpen.com>,
    'Tom McNair' <tmcnairc at gte.net>, 'Tony Choppa' <tony at osc-voc.com>,
    'Vicki Bornkamp' <seahawks at gte.net>,
    'Virginia Llewellyn' <virginia.llewellyn at bullivant.com>
Subject: Joe Koplin Jazz Quintet

If you missed the quintet at Grazie's last weekend, you can hear the band this Friday evening, October 2, from 9 pm - 1 a.m. at TULA's, 2214 Second Avenue, Seattle.  I hope to see you then.

Joe Koplin

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From allen at scn.org  Sat Oct  3 06:26:52 1998
From: allen at scn.org (allen)
Date: Sat, 3 Oct 1998 06:26:52 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: Random Sampling of e-mail services.
In-Reply-To: <Pine.SUN.3.96.981003014452.21676B-100000@scn>
Message-ID: <Pine.SUN.3.91.981003054926.17890A-100000@scn>

did you have a point to make Rich?  we are not competing with those folks,
we are trying to offer something different.  and none of the info in the 
header says anything about what e-mail program they are using.  And...please
try to edit your headers.  As far as I know, all folks who volunteer on
SCN are automatically put on the scn at scn.org mailing list.  so what is the
point of your CC line?  only serves to irritate others...and perhaps make 
them less likely to actually read your message.  I know of folks that
simply delete them without bothering to read them.  In the meantime...this
kind of thing...increases the load on the system...the mail system.  
get a clue Rich and everyone else, please?
Yes I could forward my e-mail to my other ISP...and use filtering to 
eliminate the problem.  Unfortunately, many of our users and volunteers 
do not have this option.  I strongly urge all of you on this list to please
edit your headers...I know I am not the only one getting really tired of
3-6 copies of every response to this and some other subject lines.  
Perhaps a reminder of e-mail ettiquette is in order?
Please direct comments to specific committees that are involved...and if 
more that one committee...to scn list...not every committee you think might
be interested!  Each list is for a specific purpose...please pay some 
attention to that!

 Thanks allen

On Sat, 3 Oct 1998, Rich Littleton wrote:

> Date: Sat, 3 Oct 1998 01:52:12 -0700 (PDT)
> From: Rich Littleton <be718 at scn.org>
> To: services at scn.org, Gianni Truzzi <gtruzzi at scn.org>, scn at scn.org
> Cc: bill scott <billhs at speakeasy.org>
> Subject: Random Sampling of e-mail services.
> 
> 
> Below is a list of recipients of messages from a jazz band.  Since it is a
> compilation of jazz lovers, I think it can give us some useful insight
> into the percentage of e-mailers who use what e-mail system.  It is not
> large enough to be a reliable sampling.  Also, it might reflect a moneyed
> level of society. 

again.  Rich, while we would certainly appreciate their suppot, 
support...they are not the people we are trying to help get online.
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From kurt at grogatch.seaslug.org  Sat Oct  3 17:45:09 1998
From: kurt at grogatch.seaslug.org (Kurt Cockrum)
Date: Sat, 3 Oct 1998 17:45:09 -0700
Subject: [Not about] Random Sampling of e-mail services.
Message-ID: <199810040045.RAA24008@grogatch.seaslug.org>

Reference: <Pine.SUN.3.96.981003014452.21676B-100000 at scn>
In-Reply-To: <Pine.SUN.3.91.981003054926.17890A-100000 at scn>

Allen said:
>[...]
>do not have this option.  I strongly urge all of you on this list to please
>edit your headers...I know I am not the only one getting really tired of
>3-6 copies of every response to this and some other subject lines.  
>[...]

AMEN!!!!!!!!!!!!  and while we are on the topic, I'd like to suggest
that people edit the bodies of their e-mail replies better.  I really get
tired of seeing stuff I've seen before, prefixed with ">".  Imagine if
we had to do this in our verbal conversations!  We'd have to develop a
"quoting" voice-intonation, analogous to the ">", to keep the conversation
straight, lest it start sounding like an echo :) ...and how would we
voice the equivalent of ">>", ">>>", ...?
Maybe `she0 goes, "she1 goes, "she2 goes, "...""'?  The mind boggles...

It seems sort of paradoxical that the wide-spread use of computer
applications that are "user-friendly" should result in so much widespread
rudeness to "non-users".  It looks like some sort of zero-sum game
operating here.  User wins (more convenience), everybody else loses
(time, bandwidth, storage space).  Iterate over the whole e-mail-using
population.  What a demoralizing prospect!  No wonder even the old salts
have thrown in the towel.  I hear that Gene Spafford, author of various
netiquette essays ("Emily Postnews Answers Your Questions" (I may have
the title wrong)) in times past, has given up and stopped revising his
stuff in despair that anybody was paying attention anyway.

The pattern has happened in other areas of life, where mass adoption
of individual conveniences has resulted in ripple-effects of mass
inconvenience.  Automobiles, for instance, or telephones; all once great,
now only pains-in-the-collective-butt...
--kurt
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From steve at advocate.net  Sun Oct  4 15:58:39 1998
From: steve at advocate.net (Steve)
Date: Sun, 4 Oct 1998 14:58:39 -0800
Subject: E-The People
Message-ID: <199810042208.PAA27555@scn.org>




Got a Cause and a Computer? You Can Fight City Hall

Rick Lyman
NY Times 10/3/98


Bill Clinton seems to have generated the most petitions, calling for
him to be impeached, to resign, to be left alone. Thirteen people
have signed one demanding a ban on tigers and other exotic cats as
pets. Eight favor the establishment of areas in national parks for
nudists. But a petition demanding statehood for New York City
attracted not a single signatory, not one, not even Donald Trump. 

In that dark epoch between the discovery of fire and the discovery
of the World Wide Web, the Bolsheviks had to storm the Winter Palace
to get their point across. 

Now it can all be done with the gentle click of a mouse button. 

"I got the idea when I was sitting at home in Austin watching a city
council debate on cable television," Alex Sheshunoff, 24, said. "The
issue they were discussing was very important, but the debate was
really boring, enough to induce narcolepsy. I started wondering: How
can you get citizens involved in the democratic process when they
don't have time to spend three hours at a city council meeting
waiting to make a three-minute statement?" 

His answer: E-The People, which describes itself as "America's
Interactive Town Hall" and resides in cyberspace at
www.e-thepeople.com. 

Those who find their way to the Web site, either directly or through
one of the newspapers or nonprofit agencies that are Sheshunoff's
partners, are given the chance to sign a petition already posted on
the site, create a new petition or write a letter to government
officials about whatever is stuck in their craw. 

"There have been a lot of people talking recently about the
intersection of democracy and the Internet," Sheshunoff said, "but
not a lot of people sitting down and writing the code. That's where
we come in." 

E-The People has been open since August but is still trying to
"stomp out the last of the bugs," Sheshunoff said, and should be
fully operational in a month or so. 

The Web site, which also bills itself as "an Alex Sheshunoff
Initiative," is designed to connect citizens with their government
officials, local or national, and to turn a profit for Sheshunoff
and his investors. 

For example, a Houston resident interested in protesting about the
environment is led through a process of identifying whom he should
contact (a click calls up a list that includes the governor,
lieutenant governor, city council representative, 26 state
representatives, eight state senators and 20 agency officials with
specific responsibility for the environment). 

Then the resident can compose a message that is automatically sent
as e-mail to whichever officials are selected, or as a fax, if the
recipient has no e-mail address. It is all free for the petitioners
and letter writers. Advertisers and media partners pay the freight. 

Messages can also be sent to the White House or to Congress,
Sheshunoff said, but the central intent is to address local issues. 

"The president already received a half-million e-mails a month, but
for a city council member to receive 10 letters on a single subject
can have a real impact," he said. "This is really about local people
solving local problems." 

The letters are treated as private mail, Sheshunoff said. E-The
People takes no note of their content and promises it will sell none
of the demographic data that might be collected in the process. 

Sheshunoff's initiative operates from an office on the 19th floor of
a tower in downtown Austin, part of a suite of offices that are home
to Alex Sheshunoff Management Services, the company run by his
father, a well-known banking consultant. 

The younger Sheshunoff prowled his small room recently, a thatch of
sandy hair brushing his forehead, occasionally grabbing for a
purring cellular telephone while a team of young programmers hunched
over keyboards frantically tapping in data. An American flag
dominated one wall while a map of the United States filled another,
showing the route of an 80-city transcontinental bus tour that
Sheshunoff has been running to spread the word. 

The bus, decorated to resemble a mailbox, left Austin on Aug. 1 and
has made its way across the Southwest, up the Pacific Coast and
across the prairies into the Midwest, New England and New York. It
is heading south on its return to Texas. 

So far, 45 newspapers have agreed to go into partnership with E-The
People, meaning they will feature a link to the site on their own
Web pages and share with E-The People any advertising revenues
generated by surfers traversing that link. Among those signed up are
The San Antonio Express-News, The Oregonian in Portland and The Daily
News in New York. Sheshunoff is hoping for 100 media partners. 

Sheshunoff once considered a career in network television. While a
student at Yale, he did some work for ABC News, as a production
assistant and then reading his own short, personal essays in the wee
hours. Then he read somewhere that the audience for network
television news had dropped 30 percent since 1990. 

Sheshunoff said he spent his senior year "thinking about where news
was going." This led him, as it has hundreds of others in his
generation, to the Internet. 

His first effort was an online magazine developed as a way of
allowing readers to pinpoint the restaurants and other venues
nearest their homes. "We sold some of that underlying technology to
newspapers and others, for their Web pages," he said. 

A similar process is used in E-The People, he said, but it is more
sophisticated. 

"It's not as easy as it sounds," he said, "to take somebody's
address and tell them who their elected officials are." 

Copyright 1998 The New York Times Company 




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From femme2 at scn.org  Mon Oct  5 11:09:56 1998
From: femme2 at scn.org (Lorraine Pozzi)
Date: Mon, 5 Oct 1998 11:09:56 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: Contradictory news coverage about ed-tech study (fwd)
Message-ID: <Pine.SUN.3.96.981005110132.6935B-100000@scn>


I'm wondering how many people on this list remember Steve Hodas?
He had a peculiar e-mail address that had horsehorselionlion or
something in it.  I post this to the list because Steve is a person
who not only contributed to SCN (and to Project Compute), but
also has used his experiences within SCN to consider problems in
a wider context.  Given the recent raging debates internally over
the present and future roles of SCNA within the community, I
thought Steve's comments might be interesting, both to those
who knew him in the early days of SCN and to those who are
struggling to understand (and in some cases redefine) the
purpose of the present organization.

Lorraine
femme2 at scn.org


---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Sun, 4 Oct 1998 23:18:16 EDT
From: Bonnie Bracey <BBracey at aol.com>
Reply-To: The Up for Grabs Discussion List <UPFORGRABS-L at cdinet.com>
To: UPFORGRABS-L at cdinet.com
Subject: Re: Contradictory news coverage about ed-tech study

Dave always gives wings to my thoughts but the problems are well enumerated in
Steve Hodas's work.

 <A HREF="http://www.review.com/steven/techrefusal/techrefusef.html">Hodas:
Technology Refusal and the Organizational Culture of Schools</A>
All the members of the discussion would do well to read Hodas's remarks and
those of Larry Cuban.
 <A HREF="http://www.technos.net/journal/volume7/2cuban.htm">Computers Make
Kids Smarter�Right?</A>
What do we want to use computers for in our classrooms? Researchers cannot
answer questions of purpose; policymakers, practitioners, and parents must and
should consider the questions for themselves and determine their aims.

<snip>

 <A HREF="http://www.technos.net/journal/volume4/2Radke.htm">Click here: The
Internet May Be the Safest Haven</A> The issues are so many what is a teacher
to do?

*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*

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includes the daily Headlines service), send email to:
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From david.keyes at ci.seattle.wa.us  Tue Oct  6 16:10:40 1998
From: david.keyes at ci.seattle.wa.us (David Keyes)
Date: Tue, 06 Oct 1998 16:10:40 -0700
Subject: Citizens technology Advisory Board opening
Message-ID: <s61a4119.067@ci.seattle.wa.us>

You can help guide the City's technology future....
There are currently openings on the City of Seattle's Citizens Telecommunications and Technology Advisory Board (CTTAB). The deadline to submit a letter of interest and resume is Thursday October 16th. The Board meets once per month plus committee meetings.  

I've attached a general fact sheet on CTTAB. Below is information from the press release.  More information about CTTAB is also avaialble at http://www.ci.seattle.wa.us/cttab . Thanks for your interest!
- David

NEWS ADVISORY

OPENINGS FOR CITIZENS TELECOMMUNICATIONS AND TECHNOLOGY ADVISORY BOARD

FOR INFORMATION CONTACT:
Lynne Masters, 386-0031
Alex Field, 684-8119
John Willis, 684-5398

Mayor Paul Schell and City Councilmember Tina Podlodowski are seeking applicants for several openings on the Citizens Telecommunications and Technology Advisory Board. The 15 member Board advises City officials on issues of community-wide interest related to telecommunications and technology, including cable television, electronic communications and access, and regulatory issues with the City's authority regarding wire and wireless communications systems.

The Board is composed of one member representing cable television public access, one member representing education, and 13 members at-large.  The current openings are all for at-large positions.  Board responsibilities require a commitment of at least two meetings for a total of five to seven hours a month.  All members serve without compensation and must be city of Seattle residents.

Those interested in being considered should send a letter of interest and resume by
Friday October 16, 1998, to:

Alex Field, Administrator, 
Boards and Commissions
Mayor's Office
600 Fourth Avenue, 12th Floor
Seattle, WA  98104-1873

The Schell Administration is committed to promoting diversity in the City's boards and commissions.  Women, youth, persons with disabilities, sexual minorities, and persons of color are encouraged to apply.

For more information, visit http://www.ci.seattle.wa.us/cttab or please call Lynne Masters at 386-0031 or email lynne.masters at ci.seattle.wa.us.


<<<<<<<<------------------------------>>>>>>>>>
For more information on the Citizens Technology Literacy Projects, see  
http://www.ci.seattle.wa.us/tech
----
David Keyes
(206) 386-9759
City of Seattle Technology Div.- ESD
710 Second Ave, Suite 450 (Dexter Horton Bldg.)
Seattle 98104


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From sharma at aa.net  Wed Oct  7 05:26:36 1998
From: sharma at aa.net (Sharma)
Date: Wed, 7 Oct 1998 05:26:36 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: Pine controversy
In-Reply-To: <361171AB.3709E8E5@scn.org>
Message-ID: <Pine.LNX.3.96.981007051345.3838A-100000@big.aa.net>



Hi Everyone,

I have not been reading this thread as I have too many other things to do,
just like everyone else, so imagine my surprise at how heated it has
become? Please do attempt to remember to keep the sarcasm to a minimum as
we are all volunteers and have easily hurt feelings and will just go away
if we can't play nice and have fun.

I believe that we are all doing our best with the time and resources we
have. While in theory we could and/or should be better organized and more
efficient, thus far we are not. 

I request less sand throwing and more pleasantries please. We are
providing a service. It appears to be worthwhile enough that people are
using it. I agree we need to continue to improve, but let's not forget
that about 75,000 times last month, someone chose to use SCN and did. 

I think we need to do more volunteer appreciation for ourselves and each
other so that all this struggle will be a little more fun again. Any
ideas?

Cheers,

-sharma
(volunteer mom today)


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From aki at halcyon.com  Wed Oct  7 15:59:17 1998
From: aki at halcyon.com (Aki Namioka)
Date: Wed, 7 Oct 1998 15:59:17 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: ACLU calendar time - 2nd reminder
Message-ID: <Pine.GUL.4.05.9810071553220.5651-100000@chinook.halcyon.com>

Hey All,

Just a reminder that we are running out of time for the annual
ACLU-Washington calendar fundraising effort.  Every year, CPSR/Seattle and
SCN supports join together to sponsor a page in the ACLU Washington
engagement book.

The book is full of wonderful cartoons, and witty civil liberties related
quotes.  Each page costs $500 to sponsor - the recommended amount is 10
people @ $50 per person.   We have a little more than 1/2 the amount we
need to sponsor a page.

This year our page will once again feature a wonderful cartoon by Steven
Greenberg - one of the editorial cartoonists for the Seattle P-I.  His
cartoons have also been featured in the National CPSR Newsletter this
year.

I guess I don't need to remind you that ACLU is a wonderful and worthwhile
organization.  Through the years we have worked with them on a number of
issues related to privacy and electronic information.  

Please let me know if you want to help sponsor the page and how much you
can contribute.

And, if you have already signed up, thank you!

- Aki

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From nancyk at scn.org  Wed Oct  7 19:11:17 1998
From: nancyk at scn.org (Nancy Kunitsugu)
Date: Wed, 7 Oct 1998 19:11:17 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: Meeting
In-Reply-To: <Pine.SUN.3.96.981007121339.11006C-100000@scn>
Message-ID: <Pine.SUN.3.94.981007190703.16841K-100000@scn>

Hi all,

I am unable to continue as Volunteer Coordinator at SCN.  We are much too
large an organization to ask this of one person, IMHO. 

I have asked Joel Ware to be the interim coordinator until we are either
able to hire one, or someone steps forward.  If you are interested in the
position, please notify the board. <scna at scn.org>

Sorry for any confusion,
Nancy

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From randy at scn.org  Thu Oct  8 08:54:33 1998
From: randy at scn.org (Randy Groves)
Date: Thu, 08 Oct 1998 08:54:33 -0700
Subject: Volunteer hours and membership in SCNA
In-Reply-To: <Pine.SUN.3.96.981007170800.24780A-100000@scn>
Message-ID: <Version.32.19981008080904.03c6b890@redwood.rt.cs.boeing.com>

Please excuse the duplicates - I think that this needs to have the widest
distribution.  Please read the whole message if you've volunteered with SCNA.

OK - here's how it was supposed to work.  We passed this resolution in
March.  The individual chairs of the committees were supposed to pass this
information on to their members, and we were supposed to post this
information prominently.  It HAS been posted since April in the Board minutes:

Resolved: "Volunteers who have donated five (5) hours of recorded service
to SCNA rendered within 30 days prior to application for SCNA
membership will qualify to have the minimum cash contribution waived.
Membership and waiver must be requested, and shall not be automatic.
Waiver membership may be granted by committee chairpersons or an
officer of SCNA. The form must be filled out and signed by the committee
chair or officer and sent in. Waiver membership may also be applied for
using the mail-in form and granted if all qualifications are met. SCNA
memberships by waiver shall be for one year, with full privileges, without
limitation on renewal."

In practice a new volunteer would sign up for a task, report the hours at
the next committee meeting and ask that those hours be applied to
membership. The committee chair determines if they qualify and then
reports it to the registrar. SCNA officers are included for volunteer service
rendered to the board.

This policy (a) should be clearly communicated, and (b) requires the SCNA
membership form be revised to have a check-box for the waiver
membership with an explanation of the qualifications.

*Approved by board

Obviously, the committee heads either fell down on the job, or we did, or
both.  The new policy obviously didn't get communicated.  Hey - we're trying!

In fact - since it it obvious to me that the lines of communcation did not
function - I am sending an on-line resolution to the board that any person
who has fulfilled the volunteer requirement over the last year and who
makes their wishes known to me (randy at scn.org) will be included as a member
retroactive to September 15.  This will make them eligible to vote.

Please wait until you hear from me.  It shouldn't be but a day or so.

-randy


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From steve at advocate.net  Thu Oct  8 10:25:36 1998
From: steve at advocate.net (Steve)
Date: Thu, 8 Oct 1998 09:25:36 -0800
Subject: Web site design
Message-ID: <199810081635.JAA06815@scn.org>

Don't Make This Web Site Mistake

Jesse Berst, Editorial Director
ZDNet AnchorDesk 10/8/98


Every business wants to succeed in the new millennium. Not every
business will make it. Worse, some will fail not because they built
a lousy business. But because they built a lousy Web site. 

Don't let it happen to you. 

Businesses around the world are spending billions to create Web
sites that build and maintain customer relationships. A shockingly
high percentage are wasting their money. Consider the recent
research: 

Ecommerce sites are getting it wrong. Zona Research reports 28% of
experienced Internet users have trouble finding the product they
want. And the majority of online consumers had abandoned at least
one online shopping attempt in a 60-day period.

Corporate Web sites are getting it wrong. Web usability guru Jakob
Nielsen gripes that companies "will gladly waste a million dollars
on their fancy design and not spend $4,000 to see if it works." 

Web designers are getting it wrong. Internet consultancy Port80
recently found more than half of Britain's Web design companies have
dead links, broken graphics and faulty email addresses on their own
sites. 

To build a winning Web site you don't have to be an artistic genius
or a technical wizard. You just need to know a few basic principles.
And where to get more information. Today's special edition is
designed to help you succeed, starting with the fundamentals. 

OFFER WHAT PEOPLE WANT. According to a recent Georgia Institute of
Technology survey, Web users go online primarily to: 

Read news. Roughly 90%, according to research firm MarketFacts. A
new report from Media Metrix shows news sites have recently overtaken
search engines as the most popular ports of call for Internet users.

Research. They visit corporate and other sites to learn more about
products, events and so on. 

Spend money. Research firm IDC estimates $400 billion in ecommerce
transactions by 2002. And Cyberdialogue's American Internet User
Survey recently found that online sales of travel, music, clothing,
automobiles and electronics all increased by at least 200% in the
last year. 

KEEP IT SIMPLE AND MAKE IT FAST. Or people will visit your site but
never return. Avoid these Web site pet peeves, identified by the
Georgia Institute of Technology: 

Speed. 62% complain Web sites are too slow.

Poor maintenance. 58% gripe about "linkrot," or broken links.

Counter-intuitive. 47% have trouble finding new information on a
site.

Bad organization. 28% have trouble finding pages they already know
exist. 

Copyright (c) 1998 ZDNet
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From randy at scn.org  Thu Oct  8 17:01:32 1998
From: randy at scn.org (Randy Groves)
Date: Thu, 08 Oct 1998 17:01:32 -0700
Subject: Volunteer hours and membership in SCNA
Message-ID: <9810090002.AA23449@redwood.rt.cs.boeing.com>

OK - It's official.  Because of the communications breakdown, the following
resolution was not widely distributed (see below and previous message for
details).  The board voted to support my proposal that volunteers that have
completed the volunteer hours membership requirement and make their desire
known to me (e-mail: randy at scn.org, evening phone: (425)868-6014) will have
their membership entered retroactive to September 15.  This will allow you
to vote.  The volunteer time needs to have been completed before the end of
September.

Those interested, please contact me (e-mail is best), with your address,
and phone number (if you want it included in the database - we don't
release any of this information), and I'll put you on the list.  If you
want to also give me an idea of how many hours you've contributed, that
would be cool too.

Once again, please excuse the duplicates - I think that this needs to have
the widest distribution.  Here's the resolution that has been on the web
page since April (in the March board minutes):

Resolved: "Volunteers who have donated five (5) hours of recorded service
to SCNA rendered within 30 days prior to application for SCNA
membership will qualify to have the minimum cash contribution waived.
Membership and waiver must be requested, and shall not be automatic.
Waiver membership may be granted by committee chairpersons or an
officer of SCNA. The form must be filled out and signed by the committee
chair or officer and sent in. Waiver membership may also be applied for
using the mail-in form and granted if all qualifications are met. SCNA
memberships by waiver shall be for one year, with full privileges, without
limitation on renewal."

In practice a new volunteer would sign up for a task, report the hours at
the next committee meeting and ask that those hours be applied to
membership. The committee chair determines if they qualify and then
reports it to the registrar. SCNA officers are included for volunteer service
rendered to the board.

This policy (a) should be clearly communicated, and (b) requires the SCNA
membership form be revised to have a check-box for the waiver
membership with an explanation of the qualifications.

*Approved by board

Obviously, the committee heads either fell down on the job, or we did, or
both.  The new policy obviously didn't get communicated.  Hey - we're trying!

-randy
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From be718 at scn.org  Sat Oct 10 01:31:24 1998
From: be718 at scn.org (Rich Littleton)
Date: Sat, 10 Oct 1998 01:31:24 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: Volunteer hours and membership in SCNA
In-Reply-To: <Version.32.19981008080904.03c6b890@redwood.rt.cs.boeing.com>
Message-ID: <Pine.SUN.3.96.981010013004.1116B-100000@scn>


Good message, Randy.  The discussion did get the word out and spurred me
to get in touch with one of my committee heads, Jim Horton, to get the
approval of hours.

Thanks.



______________________________________________________________________

*****  Unless stated otherwise, this message may be forwarded.  ******

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From femme2 at scn.org  Sun Oct 11 10:31:31 1998
From: femme2 at scn.org (Lorraine Pozzi)
Date: Sun, 11 Oct 1998 10:31:31 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: [GKD]: The largest educational webcast in history to start in 48 hours! (fwd)
Message-ID: <Pine.SUN.3.96.981011103108.28075A-100000@scn>


In case you are part of the "elite."  LP

---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Fri, 9 Oct 1998 20:02:15 -0400 (EDT)
From: Linda Riddell <llr at lightlink.com>
Reply-To: gkd at tristram.edc.org
To: gkd at tristram.edc.org
Subject: [GKD]: The largest educational webcast in history to start in 48 hours!

All:  Our Director of Communications, Linda Riddell, announced today that:

The largest educational webcast in history will start in less than 48
hours! 

Please visit http://www.bfranklin.edu for information (and a "preview") 
about Global Learn Day II which shall be begin 00:01 GMT Sunday October
11, 1998.  (SATURDAY, October 10, 1988, 5:00 p.m. Pacific Daylight Time). 
This will be a gathering of the elite in distance education and internet
technology with presentations from around the world. 

The Keynote Address shall be by the Mayor of Wellington, New Zealand. 
After the Mayor's presentation, our virtual Clipper will visit "ports" in
Asia, Africa, Europe and the Americas " ...in a convincing demonstration
that knowledge can now be transferred from anyplace to anywhere". 

Please join us.  Passage is free.  And ALL one has to do is visit
http://www.bfranklin.edu .  No advance registration is required.  And no
plugins are needed to see and hear marvelous presentations from virtually
every corner of the globe. 

Please pass this announcement on to friends, collegues and lists to which
you may belong.

Thank you.  See you on board.  It's gonna be an exciting trip!


John W. Hibbs, Director
Benjamin Franklin Institute
     of Global Education
4241 Jutland, Suite 2000
San Diego, California 92103
Tel/Fax 619 230 0212
http://www.bfranklin.edu
Instant summary of Global Learn Day
Please email mediakit at jjplaza.com
		

Linda Riddell, R.D.
Director of Communications
GLDII
llr at lightlink.com
www.bfranklin.edu/GLD98/media.html



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From femme2 at scn.org  Sun Oct 11 15:03:27 1998
From: femme2 at scn.org (Lorraine Pozzi)
Date: Sun, 11 Oct 1998 15:03:27 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: [GKD]: GLOBAL LEARN DAY RESCHEDULED DUE TO EARTHLINK NETWORK CRASH (fwd)
Message-ID: <Pine.SUN.3.96.981011150313.18947A-100000@scn>


Ooooops!  Don't blame me.  LP

---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Sat, 10 Oct 1998 23:56:18 -0400 (EDT)
From: Linda Riddell <llr at lightlink.com>
Reply-To: gkd at tristram.edc.org
To: gkd at tristram.edc.org
Subject: [GKD]: GLOBAL LEARN DAY RESCHEDULED DUE TO EARTHLINK NETWORK CRASH


GLOBAL LEARN DAY RESCHEDULED DUE TO EARTHLINK NETWORK CRASH

GLDII rescheduled for November 7th due to internet crash on the
West Coast. Thousands with no internet or email service.

Look for upcoming emails for presentation dates and times.

Linda Riddell, R.D.
Director of Communications
GLDII
llr at lightlink.com
www.bfranklin.edu/GLD98/media.html




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From douglas  Tue Oct 13 09:24:17 1998
From: douglas (Doug Schuler)
Date: Tue, 13 Oct 1998 09:24:17 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: TONIGHT!!!!!   Myths & realities of the "New Digital Workforce" 
Message-ID: <199810131624.JAA10745@scn.org>


------------------------------------------------- 
FYI,

This event is TONIGHT (Tuesday) at the UW

I hope that CPSR and SCN can at least bring in some material...

-- Doug
-------------------------------------------------



The New Digital Workforce
Myths and Realities of Working in High-Tech
_____________________________________________________________________

WHAT:  A panel discussion sponsored by The Washington Alliance of Technology
Workers and the Center for Labor Studies at the University of Washington.

WHEN:  Tuesday, October 13, 1998. 7pm-9:00pm.

WHERE:  Kane Hall, Room 120, University of Washington, Seattle.

In the popular imagination, the digital workforce means 35-year-old
millionaires, piles of stock options, and lavish benefits. But for thousands
employed in Puget Sound�s booming high-tech economy, a full-time job means
one works indefinitely through a temporary agency, has no job security,
earns solidly middle-class wages, and often has little access to health
care, sick leave, vacation pay and retirement plans.

As the high-tech industry leads the way in new job growth, we need to be
looking at the kinds of jobs that are being created. What benefits and
workplace rights should workers � be they contractors, agency "temps", or
permanent employees -- expect in the "New Economy"? How are employment and
staffing practices in the high-tech industry influencing the rest of
corporate America? How has a growing dependence on contingent workers
changed the employer/employee relationship, and what does this increased
reliance on a "flexible" workforce mean for society as a whole? This forum
will examine these and other questions as it addresses employment practices
in the high-tech industry. Panel discussion to be followed by audience Q&A.

Panel Participants:

Ron Judd
Executive Secretary, King County Labor Council, AFL-CIO

Laura Zeck
Creative Assets

Stephen Festor
Attorney-at-law, Bendich, Stobaugh and Strong (plaintiff�s counsel: Vizcaino
v. Microsoft)

Dmitri Iglitzin
Attorney-at-law, Schwerin, Campbell, and Barnard

Helen Lee
Director, Labor Education Center, Evergreen State College

Amy O�Neill Houck
Web producer and Internet consultant. Director, In Plain Sight Media


Moderated by:
Margaret Levi,
 Chair, Center for Labor Studies, University of Washington


For more information:
Call WashTech at (206)726-8580 or visit www.washtech.org
_____________________________________________________________________

This Event Co-Sponsored by:

Seattle Webgrrls   |   Technology Access Foundation   |   Speakeasy Network
Business, Instructional, Technical, and Educational (BITE) Division of the
National Writers Union
The Labor Education Center at Evergreen State College




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From douglas  Tue Oct 13 09:49:34 1998
From: douglas (Doug Schuler)
Date: Tue, 13 Oct 1998 09:49:34 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: Street of Digital Dreams...
Message-ID: <199810131649.JAA18293@scn.org>


FYI,

>From Jillaine Smith <jillaine at benton.org>.

-- Doug



[What follows is Benton's summary of the article; see the link at bottom
for the full text of the article. -- Jillaine]

A Year and a Half Later, a Wired Neighborhood Looks Back
Issue:  Community
Eighteen months ago, Microsoft's MSNstreet project offered residents of a
street in Islington, England the Internet beginner's dream package: a
computer, a modem, an Internet account through the Microsoft Network (MSN),
a dedicated phone line, a selection of software, a contribution toward their
phone bills, and on-site installation and tutoring by specialists. They
would also have access to a dedicated telephone line for troubleshooting,
and to a private Web site and bulletin board. In return, all they had to do
was keep a log of their online activity. The volunteers are still
enthusiastic Internet users and some of them believe the street's residents
are closer socially. "There has been a significant improvement in
communication in the street which would not have happened otherwise," a
volunteer said. The shared experience of being Internet beginners and
talking about local issues on the bulletin board "has meant that when we
meet face to face we can carry on discussions instead of blandly talking
about the weather," another said. "There is no doubt that e-mail will be
used by everybody, and that for all the talk of wiping out time zones and
geographical distances, it will become a normal way to exchange information
locally as well," said Andrew Graham, a professor of economics at Balliol
College in Oxford, who has been monitoring the project as part of his
research into the effects of new technologies on citizenship. Yet before
becoming commonplace, technology needs to "get much easier to use," Prof
Graham said. 
[SOURCE: New York Times (CyberTimes), AUTHOR: Bruno Giussani
<giussani at nytimes.com>]
<http://www.nytimes.com/library/tech/98/10/cyber/eurobytes/13euro.html>

^-^-^-^-^-^-^-^-^-^-^-^-^-^-^-^-^-^-^-^-^-^-^-^-^-^-^
Jillaine Smith, Senior Associate (jillaine at benton.org)
Benton Foundation (www.benton.org)
1634 Eye Street NW, Washington DC 20006
v: 202/638-5770, f: 202/638-5771 


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From steve at advocate.net  Thu Oct 15 09:25:55 1998
From: steve at advocate.net (Steve)
Date: Thu, 15 Oct 1998 08:25:55 -0800
Subject: The filtering controversy
Message-ID: <199810151536.IAA04639@scn.org>

Library Grapples With Protecting Internet Freedom

Katie Hafner
NY Times 10/15/98


AUSTIN, Tex. -- Just inside the entrance of the public library here
hangs a photograph of the building's namesake, John Henry Faulk, a
radio performer and humorist famous for his uncompromising defense
of free speech. 

Faulk, who was blacklisted in the McCarthy era but sued his
blacklisters and won, died in 1990. Were he alive today, Faulk would
no doubt shake his head at the tangle over free speech in which the
Faulk Central Library and the Austin Public Library branches now
find themselves. 

The Austin Public Library is one of hundreds of public libraries
around the country grappling with the question of whether to keep
objectionable material on the Internet from reaching computers
intended for public use, and, for those libraries that have decided
on blocking, how much blocking to do. After much soul-searching, the
Austin library installed filtering software on most of its
computers, a decision that divided the community, as it has many
others. 

In Loudoun County, Va., a group of library patrons who object to the
county library's filtering software on its computers, along with the
American Civil Liberties Union and Web publishers, have filed a
court case challenging the constitutionality of the practice. On the
opposite side of the continent -- and the debate -- in Livermore,
Calif., a parent is suing the public library, accusing it of failing
to restrict minors' access to pornographic Net content. Similar
conflicts are taking place across the country. 

The First Amendment issues raised by Internet filtering may seem
clear enough when public debate is at full tilt. But people's
positions are less clear in private as they struggle with their
commitment to free speech and their desire to protect children. 

Austin's two-year struggle, which is still unresolved, reflects the
national debate in all its complexity. At every step of the way,
librarians around the nation have watched Austin in search of
guidance, confirmation or any hook on which to hang a policy of
their own. 

Like her counterparts across the nation, Brenda Branch, the
energetic, high-spirited director of the Austin library, has been at
the center of the discussion. Like many other librarians, she has
always considered the defense of free speech to be part of her job
description. For most of the 23 years she has been at the Austin
library, that stand has presented her with no personal conflict. 

Ms. Branch's problems began in the summer of 1996, when computers
with unrestricted access to the Internet were placed in the main
library and its 19 branches. "Upholding freedom of speech becomes so
second nature to librarians that unrestricted access was our natural
fallback position," Ms. Branch said. "We almost didn't question it."

When staff members saw children looking at questionable sites, they
resorted to an ad hoc method of control -- cajoling them to move
elsewhere. 

They suddenly felt thrust into the role of parents. 

But things remained relatively quiet until a branch librarian
happened to walk past the library's printer one day and saw a
graphic depiction of child pornography emerging. "One look at this
and you knew it was illegal stuff," Ms. Branch said. As the librarian
was pulling the offending document out of the printer, whoever had
sent the print command disappeared. 

Coincidentally, a few days later, another library employee shot off
an angry letter to the local newspaper, the mayor, the City Council
and the city manager, charging the library with making pornography
available, in violation of the state's "harmful to minors" statute.
Texas is one of several states with a law prohibiting an adult from
knowingly displaying material considered harmful to anyone younger
than 18. 

"All of a sudden, it was like the dam broke," Ms. Branch said. She
met with her staff members, she said, and many of them broke down
and told her how uncomfortable they felt with unfettered Internet
access. Ms. Branch's employees, it turned out, were worried that they
could be arrested if they were thought to be exposing children to
pornography, however inadvertently. 

Lawyers for the city reinforced those fears. One option, which the
library swiftly rejected, was to remove Internet access from the
libraries altogether, Ms. Branch said. The lawyers then recommended
strongly that the library install software to filter objectionable
material. 

Within two weeks, the library had installed Cyber Patrol, a
filtering program popular among parents but much maligned among civil
libertarians, on the 52 public computers with Internet access. In
its haste, the library installed the software at full throttle. The
product was set up at its most restrictive so it blocked Web sites
promoting "intolerance," "alcohol and tobacco" and "illegal
gambling." 

Filtering products like those sold by Cyber Patrol often work by
searching Web sites for strings of what appear to be unseemly text.
Such a method can cause the words "Essex County," for example, to be
blocked, or "chicken breast." The company also maintains a
proprietary list of site addresses that it chooses to block, and it
updates the list regularly. 

Within a week, a stack of written complaints two inches thick had
arrived on Ms. Branch's desk. Many library patrons objected to being
subject to any censorship. Others complained about the software's
hamhanded blocking, which censored harmless sites while giving ready
access to others filled with obscene language and images. 

One library user conducted an Internet search for "toys." At the top
of the search results was "Toys 4 Lovers." At the same time, patrons
trying to retrieve Web sites dedicated to Georgia O'Keeffe and
Vincent Van Gogh were confronted by a computer screen flashing a
yellow Cyber Patrol police badge. An H.I.V. Information Center was
also found to be off limits. 

"It's operating like the K.G.B.!" one person complained. 

Another wrote, "Incensed that you would tell me as a parent what my
child should see and what they should not see." People even
complained that sites containing the name John Henry Faulk were
banned, presumably because of the proximity to one another of the
letters F, U and K. But Cyber Patrol says its software would not
exclude those kinds of sites. 

Ms. Branch's office in the Faulk Central Library in downtown Austin
is playfully decorated with stuffed animals and dishes of candy. On
her door frame is a magnet that reads: "Don't rush me. I'm making
mistakes as fast as I can." Inspired more by Gidget than gravitas,
Ms. Branch's office betrays no trace of the somber situations in
which the librarian has found herself. 

Ms. Branch, 51, was named director of the Austin public library
system in 1991. 

She said the only previous experience that foreshadowed the current
debate occurred in 1992, when Madonna's graphic book "Sex" sparked
an outcry from some parents and church groups. 

During the Madonna incident, as Ms. Branch refers to it, she was in
frequent touch with the American Library Association. "The A.L.A.
was an incredible source of support," she said. "I really depended on
them for information and legal advice." 

When the issue of filtering Internet content arose, however, the
A.L.A. left Ms. Branch trapped squarely between library science and
local politics. In late 1996, a few months after the library
introduced Internet access, Ms. Branch sought guidance from the
A.L.A. about whether to install filters. She was surprised to get a
sharp letter in reply, in which the A.L.A. endorsed the idea of
unrestricted Internet access for adults and minors alike. In July
1997, the A.L.A. issued a formal resolution condemning the use of
filtering software that blocks access to constitutionally protected
speech and recommended parental discretion. 

According to the A.L.A.'s Office for Information Technology Policy,
11,600 of the nation's nearly 16,000 libraries offer Internet
access, and some 15 percent of those have installed filtering
software. Most libraries, including many with filters, have an
"acceptable use" policy in place, which urges patrons to use the
Internet responsibly.

"Our policies are very carefully considered," said Richard Matthews,
deputy director of the Office for Intellectual Freedom at the A.L.A.
"We certainly have addressed the First Amendment implications of our
stance against filtering, and to take any position accepting
something less than that ideal stance would be unacceptable." 

Ms. Branch said she found the A.L.A.'s policy frustrating because it
fails to take into account the practical considerations of exposing
children to what she calls "some of the horrifying stuff out there."

That horrifying stuff is precisely what has given rise to the
pro-filtering position among a number of Austinites. "If we live in
a society that requires one to be 21 to drink, 18 to smoke, and last
I understood, 18 to purchase porno magazines, why is it free and
acceptable to view porno on the Internet at a public library?" one
Austin parent wrote to Ms. Branch. 

"My biggest dilemma," Ms. Branch said, "is how to balance the rights
of adults with the need to protect youth." 

Shortly after Austin installed filters, the A.C.L.U. condemned the
new practice. A.C.L.U. lawyers investigated the possibility of
filing a lawsuit to challenge the constitutionality of the library's
action.

Austin has long been known as a city more liberal than the rest of
the state. For nearly eight years, the city has been home to
Electronic Frontiers-Texas, a small but active group of civil
libertarians who focus on the rights of those who travel in
cyberspace. When members of the group heard about the library's
filters, they joined forces with the A.C.L.U. and complained to the
City Council, which controls the financing for the library. Invoking
an analogy often used when discussing library filtering, Jon
Lebkowsky, an EF-Texas member, said, "It came down to a fundamental
question: Are you taking books off the shelves, or are you
exercising the library's prerogative to select some books and not
others?" 

In March 1997, city officials convened a community roundtable, with
Ms. Branch and other librarians, EF-Texas, the A.C.L.U., the city,
and Jennifer Padden, a representative of the local P.T.A. 

After several weeks of debate, the library disabled the keyword
blocking and reduced the number of categories being filtered out to
four: "gross depictions," "sexual acts," "partial nudity" and "full
nudity." 

Now there are four unfiltered computers scattered around the library
system, with plans to have one unfiltered computer at each branch by
this time next year. The screens for the unfiltered machines are in
specially built recessed tables that keep the computer screens well
out of public view. Only patrons 18 and older may use an unfiltered
machine, and they must present proof of age. Minors cannot use the
machines even if they have parental permission slips or are
accompanied by parents. 

Now that fewer categories of Web sites are blocked and unfiltered
computers are available to adults, Ms. Branch said, complaints about
the filtering have diminished sharply. A library customer who
objects to the blocking of a certain site can complain to the library
staff, who can ask Cyber Patrol to stop blocking the site. 

Everyone agrees that the current setup in Austin is a fragile
compromise. From the point of view of EF-Texas and the A.C.L.U.,
which calls filtering "censorship in a box," it is an unacceptable
one. "The least filtering we're likely to get is still more
filtering than any of us want," said Jim Robinson, an EF-Texas member
who opposes filters. 

But EF-Texas members aren't completely in unison. While Robinson is
unwavering in his stance against any and all filtering, others, like
Mr. Lebkowsky, are less so. "There's the potential for libraries to
become like adult arcades if access to hard-core porn isn't somehow
restricted," said Mr. Lebkowsky. He said "minimal filtering" might
be the solution. 

Ms. Padden of the P.T.A. spoke passionately at the community
roundtable in favor of filtering, yet the computer she has at home
is unfiltered. When her children go on line, she goes with them. "I'd
like to think I've raised my kids with my values, and they respect
them," she said. "But there are probably 10 times more kids whose
parents don't have the time or the computer capability to understand
what their kids are looking at or doing at the library." 

Ultimately, legislation or a court ruling may set boundaries. Some
version of mandatory-filtering legislation for public libraries and
schools may become law as part of the appropriations bill being
considered this week in Congress. 

Librarians in Austin and elsewhere are also watching the Loudoun
County case. 

Ann Beeson, an A.C.L.U. lawyer who spends much of her time on Web
cases, said: "We hope the decision coming out of Loudoun will
heavily influence how other jurisdictions proceed. If we get a strong
decision in our favor, we'll feel even more confident in challenging
other jurisdictions trying to impose mandatory filtering." 

Eugene Volokh, a law professor at the University of California at
Los Angeles, speculated that a court might be more likely to accept
Internet filtering that, like Austin's, would affect only children.
"Then again," he added, "it's conceivable that a court will say the
library has a completely free hand, that blocking the Internet is
more like not buying the book in the first place." 

Ms. Beeson, who is monitoring the struggles over filtering in
several cities simultaneously, said the A.C.L.U. continued to watch
Austin closely. "It's still not off the radar screen," she said.
"We've just been eminently patient with Austin." 

Ms. Beeson said she approved of the plan to place an unfiltered
machine in every library branch, but she objects to the library's
uncompromising restrictions on minors, particularly older
teen-agers.

But Ms. Beeson said she also sympathized with Ms. Branch. "Like many
librarians, she's been caught between a rock and a hard place," Ms.
Beeson said. "Her instincts are in all the right places, but she's
in a very awkward position." 

Copyright 1998 The New York Times Company 

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From douglas  Thu Oct 15 17:01:29 1998
From: douglas (Doug Schuler)
Date: Thu, 15 Oct 1998 17:01:29 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: Openings NOW!
Message-ID: <199810160001.RAA04253@scn.org>

Make a difference!

There are NOW openings for the Citizen's Telecommunications and
Technology Advisory Board.

I think the deadline is Friday for this round.

Send a letter of interest and resume to Alex Field, Administrator,
Boards and Commissions, Mayor's Office, 600 Fourth Avenue, 12th Floor,
Seattle, WA  98104-1873.

Check http://www.ci.seattle.wa.us/cttab

Thanks

-- Doug

PS.  You might want to let this list know if you do apply, in case
people on the list want to show some support.


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From david.keyes at ci.seattle.wa.us  Thu Oct 15 18:03:43 1998
From: david.keyes at ci.seattle.wa.us (David Keyes)
Date: Thu, 15 Oct 1998 18:03:43 -0700
Subject: Openings NOW!- And care to teach?
Message-ID: <s6263911.099@ci.seattle.wa.us>

You could email the letter and resume for the Citizens Telecom Board. The address is to Alex.Field at ci.seattle.wa.us.
(Deadline is Friday, but I'd suggest you contact her if you're interested and can't have something in Friday). 
- Dave

<<<<<<<<------------------------------>>>>>>>>>
For more information on the Citizens Technology Literacy Projects, see  
http://www.ci.seattle.wa.us/tech
----
David Keyes
(206) 386-9759
City of Seattle Technology Div.- ESD
710 Second Ave, Suite 450 (Dexter Horton Bldg.)
Seattle 98104


>>> Doug Schuler <douglas at scn.org> 10/15 5:01 PM >>>
Make a difference!

There are NOW openings for the Citizen's Telecommunications and
Technology Advisory Board.

I think the deadline is Friday for this round.

Send a letter of interest and resume to Alex Field, Administrator,
Boards and Commissions, Mayor's Office, 600 Fourth Avenue, 12th Floor,
Seattle, WA  98104-1873.

Check http://www.ci.seattle.wa.us/cttab 

Thanks

-- Doug

PS.  You might want to let this list know if you do apply, in case
people on the list want to show some support.


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From gtruzzi at wolfenet.com  Fri Oct 16 14:27:28 1998
From: gtruzzi at wolfenet.com (Gianni Truzzi)
Date: Fri, 16 Oct 1998 14:27:28 -0700
Subject: Openings NOW!- And care to teach?
References: <s6263911.099@ci.seattle.wa.us>
Message-ID: <3627BA40.27BAA44E@wolfenet.com>

FYI:

I have just submitted my qualifications to Ms. Field for a position on CTTAB.

I had not been sure I wished to take on another volunteer responsibility, but have concluded that this is important
enough.

-- Gianni Truzzi
V.P., Seattle Community Network Association.

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From steve at advocate.net  Sun Oct 18 09:26:35 1998
From: steve at advocate.net (Steve)
Date: Sun, 18 Oct 1998 08:26:35 -0800
Subject: Committee Attendance
Message-ID: <199810181543.IAA07045@scn.org>

Seems to me that punitive measures are doomed to failure.  If the 
motivation can't be found in support for SCN's mission, it just ain't 
gonna happen...


------- Forwarded Message Follows -------
Date:          Sun, 18 Oct 1998 03:12:59 -0700 (PDT)
From:          Rich Littleton <be718 at scn.org>
Subject:       Committee Attendance

I suggested that membership be dependent on attending a certain
percentage (or not skipping more than x meetings in a row), or ....

That was not adopted, and the committee is now fading.

Perhaps this is a good idea for most committees.  It would require a
minimum level of inovlvement.  If the numbers did fall, then the
committee could focuss on recruitement for a month or two.
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From be718 at scn.org  Sun Oct 18 20:24:58 1998
From: be718 at scn.org (Rich Littleton)
Date: Sun, 18 Oct 1998 20:24:58 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: Committee Attendance
In-Reply-To: <199810181543.IAA07045@scn.org>
Message-ID: <Pine.SUN.3.96.981018201743.15285A-100000@scn>


Right, beating people over the head isn't a good ploy.  However, I think a
minimum standard of involvement will (a) show if the committee is viable,
and (b) give advance warning of the need to focus on recruitment.

In the case of Outreach, we did not do any active recruiting; it was more
a word-of-mouth sort of thing.  

There should also be a re-connection process that won't require much. 
(Just one's first-born child, or a finger joint ....) But the point would
be to make the involvement a matter of some committment.  If nothing else,
it would be clear how many "troops" would be available to do the
committee business.

A (modified) thought.

Rich


______________________________________________________________________

*****  Unless stated otherwise, this message may be forwarded.  ******

On Sun, 18 Oct 1998, Steve wrote:

> Seems to me that punitive measures are doomed to failure.  If the 
> motivation can't be found in support for SCN's mission, it just ain't 
> gonna happen...
> 
> 
> ------- Forwarded Message Follows -------
> Date:          Sun, 18 Oct 1998 03:12:59 -0700 (PDT)
> From:          Rich Littleton <be718 at scn.org>
> Subject:       Committee Attendance
> 
> I suggested that membership be dependent on attending a certain
> percentage (or not skipping more than x meetings in a row), or ....
> 
> That was not adopted, and the committee is now fading.
> 
> Perhaps this is a good idea for most committees.  It would require a
> minimum level of inovlvement.  If the numbers did fall, then the
> committee could focuss on recruitement for a month or two.
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From help at scn.org  Mon Oct 19 12:37:46 1998
From: help at scn.org (SCN help)
Date: Mon, 19 Oct 1998 12:37:46 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: Tell me the Address (fwd)
Message-ID: <Pine.SUN.3.96.981019123531.18391B-100000@scn>



 From the SCN Help Desk: Andrew

Anyone want to help this nice person out?  ;-)


 ---------- Forwarded message ----------
 Date: Mon, 19 Oct 1998 20:56:41 +0600
 From: Chartered Computer <c-comp at bdcom.com>
 To: help at scn.org
 Subject: Tell me the Address

To
The Person In-Charge
Seattle Community Network
P.O. Box No. 85539
Seattle WA 98145


Respected Sir,

I want to know the address of Willium Bill Gates (The Owner f Microsoft
Company).

Please let me know his residential and e-mail address at your earliest
convenience.

Thanking you,

Sincerely yours,

Shahin Zohora
Researcher
Department of Law
University of Rajshahi
Rajshahi-6205
Bangladesh
Fax      : +00-880-721-773937 (Attn. Zohora)
E-Mail : c-comp at bdcom.com


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From douglas  Mon Oct 19 13:29:04 1998
From: douglas (Doug Schuler)
Date: Mon, 19 Oct 1998 13:29:04 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: FCN = "free community network"
Message-ID: <199810192029.NAA09146@scn.org>


FYI,

>From Steve Cisler...

> Date: Mon, 19 Oct 1998 13:10:03 -0800
> From: "cisler" <cisler at pobox.com>
> To: AFCNmembers <afcn-members at lists.colorado.edu>
> Subject: Top Level Domain
> 
> As some of you may have read Jon Postel died, just as the top level domain
> controversies were being stirred up once again.  Lots of articles all over
> the net.  One from IDG talks about Bob Allisat, a Canadian, and his TLD 
> "Free Community Network".  I did a search on hotbot and found this:
> 
> http://www.fcn.net/yindex.html
> 
> Worth looking at, even if it comes to naught. The idea is to have all CNs
> and similar orgs have the suffix  "fcn.net"  and he has a registration area.
>  Has anyone already done this?
> 
> Steve Cisler
> 
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From steve at advocate.net  Tue Oct 20 09:08:36 1998
From: steve at advocate.net (Steve)
Date: Tue, 20 Oct 1998 08:08:36 -0800
Subject: Networking
Message-ID: <199810201518.IAA07962@scn.org>



------- Forwarded Message Follows -------
From:          Nan Hawthorne <hawthorne at CYBERVPM.COM>


CyberVPM offers professionals responsible for volunteer programs in
nonprofit and government organizations and those in business to
serve them an opportunity to get advice and guidance, share ideas and
resources and build a virtual support system.  CyberVPM is just over
three years old and is an active, thriving list with members all
over the world.  It is available as individual postings, has weekly
special topic chats and is accompanied by the ChairtyChannel's
innovative announcement series.  Bottom banner advertising
opportunities available.

CyberVPM moved to a new server in September 1998.  You may now join
CyberVPM and get information on ChairtyChannel's many other forums
oriented to nonprofit organizations by visiting
http://CharityChannel.com/forums/.  You join CyberVPM also by
sending:

subscribe CyberVPM [firstname lastname]

to Listserv at CharityChannel.com.

More information on CyberVPM is available at
http://www.cybervpm.com.

Nan Hawthorne        hawthorne at cybervpm.com CyberVPM.com      
Voice:(206) 525-2104 9594 1st Av NE #413  FAX:(206) 525-3320 Seattle
WA 98115 USA



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From alboss at scn.org  Thu Oct 22 13:25:37 1998
From: alboss at scn.org (Al Boss)
Date: Thu, 22 Oct 1998 13:25:37 -0700
Subject: Another try at free Internet services (fwd)
Message-ID: <362F94C1.B74FD4A9@scn.org>

Objective: It's no doubt a valuable service in most places, which lack a
viable community network such as ours--and even here, it offers another
choice to people.

Subjective: Ugh.  

Glad to be on SCN,

Al

---- 

ANOTHER TRY AT FREE NET SERVICE
NetZero Inc. is offering free Internet service to consumers, operating
on an advertising-based business model.  The company isn't selling your
typical banner ad, however.  NetZero's banners can "follow" users from
site to site as they peruse the Web.  The company says it's spent a year
developing software that tracks users' habits, enabling advertisers to
pinpoint their messages more efficiently.  "We can target within a
12-mile radius of where (a subscriber) lives," says NetZero's CEO. 
Idealab Capital Partners, which is backing the venture, thinks
subscribers will like the free access despite the ads.  "People are
spending $21.95 a month for AOL -- that's a lot of money," says
Idealab's managing director.  "We offer a value proposition that's hard
to beat."  (Investor's Business Daily 19 Oct 98)

excerpt from Edupage, 20 October 1998. Edupage, a summary of news about
information technology, is provided three times a week as a service of
EDUCAUSE, an international nonprofit association dedicated to
transforming higher education through information technologies.
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From sharma at aa.net  Fri Oct 23 04:03:44 1998
From: sharma at aa.net (Sharma)
Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 04:03:44 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: Potluck Oct 28 at Elections
Message-ID: <Pine.LNX.3.96.981023034640.28390B-100000@big.aa.net>



Hello Everyone,

Hooray! We made it through another year! Our system continues to be up and
running a remarkable amount of the time, and we do it all with volunteers!
So, to celebrate and appreciate ourselves we are going to have a little
party after we elect three new members to the Board.

Please join us on October 28, 1998 at the University Branch of the Seattle
Public Library, 50th and Roosevelt NE at 7 PM.

Candidate information and the proxy form are available on our web pages,
although we hope you will all be able to attend in person. 

Please bring snack, munchies and finger foods to share. We will provide
pop, other munchies, plates, napkins, and anything else we think of.

Please make every effort to join the celebration!

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From steve at advocate.net  Fri Oct 23 15:58:52 1998
From: steve at advocate.net (Steve)
Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 14:58:52 -0800
Subject: ICANN
Message-ID: <199810232206.PAA09391@scn.org>



A Kind of Constitutional Convention for the Internet

Carl S. Kaplan
NY Times 10/23/98


At first blush, the new nonprofit organization selected by the
Clinton Administration earlier this week to take over the important
job of administering Internet domain names appears to be just
another geeky technical standards group. 

But look closer, say some legal observers, and you will see that the
newborn baby, called the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and
Numbers (ICANN), is actually the beginning of something big -- a
unique form of government for the global Internet. 

Over the next few weeks, these observers say, a constitutional
moment in the life of the Internet will occur as representatives of
the government and various interest groups seek to hash out the
corporation's structure and rules in an effort to give it final
shape and check its power. 

But unlike the gathering in Philadelphia where the United States
Constitution was created, this process is much more informal and
decentralized. 

"This is a constitutional convention in a sense," said Jonathan
Zittrain, a law professor at Harvard University and executive
director of the Berkman Center for Internet and Society, the
school's cyberspace research center. "That's why there's such great
interest" in ICANN and its birth, he said. 

David Post, a law professor at Temple University who specializes in
the legal issues of cyberspace, added: "If there is going to be this
one entity that has a great deal of power, you'd have to say that
the process of deciding how that power will be exercised is
constitution-making. This absolutely is a critical moment." 

Post, who wrote an article about ICANN in the November issue of The
American Lawyer, said in an interview that any organization that
controls the Internet's addressing system -- including the
assignment of domain names, like "nytimes.com," and corresponding
numerical addresses -- has a potential "choke hold" on cyberspace. 

"For all the talk about how difficult it is for any country to
govern the Internet because the Internet is global and decentralized,
well, this is the only place in the system that is in some sense
centrally managed and centrally controlled," Post said. 

He noted that ICANN could theoretically govern the Internet by
imposing certain conditions on people who wish to participate in
cyberspace. For example, he said, if it wanted to outlaw anonymity
on the Internet, ICANN could tell Internet service providers that
they could not get a domain name address unless they took steps to
make their subscribers fully identifiable. The organization could do
the same to enforce a privacy policy or other rules, Post said. 

Previously, the domain name system was supervised by the United
States government through contractual arrangements with the Internet
Assigned Numbers Authority(IANA) and Network Solutions Inc. Over the
past year or so, the government encouraged companies and groups with
an interest in the Internet's future to submit proposals for a
not-for-profit corporation that would take over control of the
Internet address system.

On Oct. 2, Dr. Jon Postel, an Internet pioneer who ran IANA,
submitted a plan to the Secretary of Commerce for the establishment
of ICANN, based on extensive discussions with a wide range of people
and organizations. Postel died last Friday of complications after
undergoing heart surgery. 

The ICANN plan vested power over global domain name policy in a
geographically diverse board of 19 directors, to be selected by an
interim board and three technical subgroups. Critics complained that
the plan was undemocratic and dangerous. 

"The biggest problem that we found was accountability," said Diane
Cabell, a Boston lawyer and member of the Boston Working Group, a
loose collection of Internet users that submitted criticisms of the
ICANN plan to the Commerce Department. 

"The board was not accountable to anyone because there were no
members or shareholders," she said. In addition, the plan does not
call for a competing organization to check the board's power, nor is
there any regulatory oversight of its activities, she said. 

Karl Auerbach, a member of the Boston Working Group who has been
involved with the development of the Internet since 1973, said in an
interview that the ICANN proposals gave the impression of openness
and responsiveness. "But really the power was in the hands of a few
-- half a dozen people running this thing for the whole world," he
said. "That terrified me." 

The Boston Group and some other critics want to check ICANN's power
by requiring the organization to have members who will elect the
board and participate in annual meetings. They also want to lessen
the role of the three technical subgroups. 

For its part, the government seems to be nudging but not requiring
ICANN to adopt a membership structure. In a letter sent last week to
ICANN representatives, the Commerce Department said that although it
regarded the ICANN proposal as "a significant step" in the
privatization of the domain name system, it also expressed the hope
that the organization would "review and consider the many thoughtful
and constructive comments" from critics, including the Boston
Working Group and the Open Root Server Confederation. 

In particular, the letter noted that the ICANN board, under its
proposed bylaws, is encouraged but not required to establish a
membership structure. 

"We believe ICANN should resolve this issue in a way that ensures
greater accountability of the board of directors to the Internet
community," the letter said. 

Ira C. Magaziner, the White House's Internet guru, said in an
interview that over the next few weeks the ICANN group "is going to
work on amending their proposal" to respond to the government's
concerns about accountability, among other things. "If they fail to
do that, we will have to consider other alternatives," he said. "But
my guess is they will succeed. 

"It's been suggested that some type of membership organization may
be necessary to achieve the type of accountability everybody wants.
We don't want to dictate how this should be done, however." 

Joe Sims, a Washington-based lawyer who represents ICANN, said his
group will give "serious consideration" to criticisms of the plan,
but he declined to comment specifically on how the ICANN proposal
might be modified. He added that he didn't think there was "a
significant gap" between ICANN and some critics on the membership
issue. 

Sims also said he thinks the importance of the negotiations over
ICANN's structure has been overblown. "This is at heart an
administrative body," he said. 

Post said he thinks that some sort of membership structure for ICANN
would be better than nothing. But he fears that even this may not be
a sufficient check on the board's concentrated power. 

"The best thing would be to split up ICANN's power into competing
centers of power -- break it up into pieces and give it to different
institutions," he said. Otherwise, he said, it would be too easy for
private interests to "capture" the board. 

Zittrain of Harvard said that he believes fragmenting power too much
can be inefficient. "You've got to trust somebody," he said. "I
think a high-profile board from a broad electoral base" would give
those involved with the Internet good protection from possible
abuses. 

Zittrain added, however, that although he had high hopes for a
modified ICANN, he found something ironic in the birth process. The
government, he explained, believes that the task of running the
domain name system can better be handled by the private sector. At
the same time, it is helping to create an entity that resembles a
government. 

"Sooner or later this thing [ICANN] will start looking and talking
like a duck, so what makes it not a government?" he asked. 

Copyright 1998 The New York Times Company 




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From steve at advocate.net  Sat Oct 24 11:36:05 1998
From: steve at advocate.net (Steve)
Date: Sat, 24 Oct 1998 10:36:05 -0800
Subject: Politics
Message-ID: <199810241744.KAA03249@scn.org>

A few useful political sites -


E-The People - Forum to email politicians and sign or start
electronic petitions.  www.e-thepeople.com

Center for Responsive Politics - Tracks every nickel flowing into and
out of Congressional coffers.  www.crp.org

Project Vote Smart - Keeps tabs on every voting record, plus
biographical data, campaign finances, issue positions and contact
info.  www.vote-smart.org

Democracy Network - Candidate comparisons. Links to candidate web
sites.  www.dnet.org

FECInfo - Started by a former Federal Election Committee staffer, this
private site makes it easy to discover who is paying the candidates. 
www.tray.com/fecinfo
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From steve at advocate.net  Sat Oct 24 11:40:32 1998
From: steve at advocate.net (Steve)
Date: Sat, 24 Oct 1998 10:40:32 -0800
Subject: NetZero
Message-ID: <199810241748.KAA04776@scn.org>



ISP Trades Free Bandwidth for Personal Data 

Georgie Raik-Allen 
Red Herring Online October 21, 1998 


NetZero is chasing the holy grail of the Internet: one-to-one
marketing. 

Like all such pilgrims, NetZero follows a path littered with the
remains of those that have gone before it. But, thanks to new
targeting technology and cheaper bandwidth, the company plans to
offer free Internet access in exchange for the type of personal
profiles that advertisers will pay big bucks for. 

It's not a new concept, but Marc Johnson from Jupiter Communications
advertising group said it was a "great idea," and that startups would
continue to pursue ad-supported free ISP until one got it right. 

"Someone will make it happen at some point, but I won't try to
predict when," Mr. Johnson says. 

NetZero launched this week with funding from its sole backers,
Idealab Capital Partners, the venture capital arm of Bill Gross's
Idealab incubator. The first-round funding figure was not disclosed,
but NetZero spokesperson Bob Pack said it was between $5 million and
$10 million. 

The NetZero working model To subscribe to the service, users need to
answer around 15 questions about their interests, demographic data,
and other personal information. NetZero uses the data to build a
profile of the subscriber that it continually refines by monitoring
online behavior. 

When a user logs on to the Web browser, a 1-by-3.5-inch personalized
banner advertisement opens on the screen. It can be moved around, but
not closed or reduced. A subscriber visiting an automaker's site could
receive an ad from a local car dealer or could get a special
promotion from an online book seller subscriber while browsing book
reviews. 

NetZero claims it can use the 3-digit dialup phone prefix to drill
down to a five-mile radius the location of subscribers. Such
targeting is considered critical to the Internet advertising market,
expected to be worth $4.5 billion by the year 2000. 

Mr. Pack said that ads on NetZero can also be targeted to a specific
URL. For example, an airline company could display its ad when a
travel site was accessed, or a car rental company could target its ad
to its main rival's URL. 

"It's real-time advertising based on real online behavior," he says. 

It all sounds pretty cool, but many similar ad-supported free
Internet access services have failed in the past. 

Mr. Pack claims that NetZero is better positioned than its
predecessors because "the cost of bandwidth has halved in the last
year and the number of advertisers online has doubled." The startup
leases networking time from AGIS and GTE at a cost "that has come down
significantly in the past 12 months." 

While Mr. Johnson thinks NetZero stands "a lot better chance" of
success than those that have gone before it, he was still not too
optimistic. "There is no guarantee. I wouldn't give them more than
50/50 odds." 

Subscriber base not yet there Online advertisers may be increasing,
but so are the number of sites on which they can place their ads. The
startup's major obstacle will be the huge marketing costs required to
attract a large enough subscriber base to bring those advertisers to
the table. 

"Right now they are selling against nothing. NetZero will have to
engage in guerrilla marketing to ramp up the subscriber base," Mr.
Johnson says. "The company's success depends on how much they are
prepared to spend." 

The startup wants to convert 80 percent of subscribers through ad
banners and attract another 20 percent of those users not yet on the
Internet. 

So far about 10 advertisers are signed up, but the startup wants
300,000 on the books in the next six months, and is aiming for
600,000 subscribers in the same period. 

In the meantime, "we are asking advertisers to take a leap of faith
because our subscription base is still low," Mr. Pack said. 

He sounds like a true believer, but in business -- even Internet
commerce -- faith is not always enough.

c Red Herring Communications 



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From janossz at scn.org  Sat Oct 24 19:31:30 1998
From: janossz at scn.org (Janos Szablya)
Date: Sat, 24 Oct 1998 19:31:30 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: NetZero
In-Reply-To: <199810241748.KAA04776@scn.org>
Message-ID: <Pine.SUN.3.96.981024192845.22831B-100000@scn>

Advertising......


proposed....

prior to on line


took how many years just to get sponsered phone lines.....


We took a stance....I agreed not......I have stood by it....

I think that............no not yet.....

Janos 

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From steve at advocate.net  Thu Oct 29 09:27:59 1998
From: steve at advocate.net (Steve)
Date: Thu, 29 Oct 1998 09:27:59 -0800
Subject: No free lunch?
Message-ID: <199810291736.JAA05651@scn.org>


Liz Enbysk, Managing Editor
ZDNet AnchorDesk 10/29/98


News flash -- there's no such thing as a free lunch! Launched in
January 1997, Internet service provider @bigger.net promised
subscribers a lifetime of Internet access for a onetime $59 fee.

Sound too good to be true? It was. @bigger.net has gone belly up --
leaving 40,000 Bay-area customers in the lurch. 

Many ISPs have tried -- and failed -- to figure out how to offer
no-fee Internet access. (@bigger.net proposed an advertising-funded
system.) One day, no-fee ISPs will abound. But until then, expect
several companies to die while figuring out a viable business model.
"Free" lunches need someone to pay the tab. 

Copyright (c) 1998 ZDNet


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From douglas  Fri Oct 30 08:46:31 1998
From: douglas (Doug Schuler)
Date: Fri, 30 Oct 1998 08:46:31 -0800 (PST)
Subject: web based mail for scn?
Message-ID: <199810301646.IAA02329@scn.org>


Hi Al and others,

I have no idea where the discussion went but I am one of the people
that thinks it would be a good idea to have a way for people to pck
up their scn via the web.  One of my students, Jakob Kaivo, 
has developed a web based e-mail program.  I have not checked it
out yet.  He would be very happy if scn found a use for it.
The url is http://www.atdot.org/.

Thanks!

-- doug

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From bb615 at scn.org  Fri Oct 30 09:47:38 1998
From: bb615 at scn.org (Rod Clark)
Date: Fri, 30 Oct 1998 09:47:38 -0800 (PST)
Subject: web based mail for scn?
In-Reply-To: <199810301646.IAA02329@scn.org>
Message-ID: <Pine.SUN.3.96.981030092609.15595A-100000@scn>

> I have no idea where the discussion went but I am one of the people
> that thinks it would be a good idea to have a way for people to pck
> up their scn via the web.  One of my students, Jakob Kaivo, 
> has developed a web based e-mail program.  I have not checked it
> out yet.  He would be very happy if scn found a use for it.
> The url is http://www.atdot.org/.

Doug, 

   Al's discussion of Web-based e-mail led to looking into
several such software packages. AtDot's product was considered,
up through a review of its documentation. We did install and
test two others. Hardware/Software rejected one of them after
some initial testing. The other, Endymion MailMan, is still up
and running for further testing. Several people used it to check
their mail at the Webmasters meeting on Sunday. There are other
and probably better products, but we'd need a budget before we
could buy and test them. Endymion is free for non-commercial
use, and the source code is available (which we'd need, because
it has at least a couple of minor bugs.)

   We might be able to announce a public demo by sometime next
week, if Webmasters and Hardware/Software are agreeable to that.

Rod Clark

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From be718 at scn.org  Fri Oct 30 20:28:34 1998
From: be718 at scn.org (Rich Littleton)
Date: Fri, 30 Oct 1998 20:28:34 -0800 (PST)
Subject: web based mail for scn?
In-Reply-To: <199810301646.IAA02329@scn.org>
Message-ID: <Pine.SUN.3.96.981030202813.3691A-100000@scn>


Doug, this is a very useful contribution to the discussion.  Thanks.

______________________________________________________________________

*****  Unless stated otherwise, this message may be forwarded.  ******

On Fri, 30 Oct 1998, Doug Schuler wrote:

> 
> Hi Al and others,
> 
> I have no idea where the discussion went but I am one of the people
> that thinks it would be a good idea to have a way for people to pck
> up their scn via the web.  One of my students, Jakob Kaivo, 
> has developed a web based e-mail program.  I have not checked it
> out yet.  He would be very happy if scn found a use for it.
> The url is http://www.atdot.org/.
> 
> Thanks!
> 
> -- doug
> 
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> .	To unsubscribe from this list, send a message to:
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> unsubscribe scn
> END
> 

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From steve at advocate.net  Sat Oct 31 14:27:42 1998
From: steve at advocate.net (Steve)
Date: Sat, 31 Oct 1998 14:27:42 -0800
Subject: Are we wallflowers?
Message-ID: <199810312235.OAA07952@scn.org>



Anybody wanna take a crack at determining our popularity?

================================

Compute Your Own Web Traffic Rank

Jakob Nielsen
Useit.com Alertbox 11/98 - Sidebar


As long as Yahoo remains the most popular site on the Web and
continues to publish its traffic data in regular press releases, you
have an easy way to calculate the popularity ranking of your own
website: where your site stands relative to the other sites on the
Web. 

Web traffic follows a Zipf distribution, meaning that it has a few
very large sites, a decent number of mid-sized sites, and a huge
number of small sites. In general, the Zipf distribution says that
traffic for the N'th most popular website will be 

T = Y/N (where T is the site's own traffic and Y is the traffic on
the most popular site)

In other words, the Web's tenth most popular site will have 10% of
Yahoo's traffic, site number 100 will have 1% of Yahoo's traffic, and
so on down the line to site number three million which has
1/3,000,000 the traffic of Yahoo: about 48 page views per day, which
sounds about right for one of the least popular sites. 

Simple arithmetic makes it possible to change the traffic formula
into a popularity formula: 

N = Y/T (where N = your site's popularity rank.  Y = page views on 
the Web's most popular site.  T = your site's traffic in page views)

Yahoo's traffic in September 1998 was 144 million page views per day,
or 1.01 billion page views per week. During that period, my own site,
www.useit.com received 110,360 page views per week. Thus, the formula
says that useit had a popularity rank of 1,008,000,000/110,360 =
9,134. Estimating useit to be approximately number 9,000 on the Web
corresponds well with data from Alexa's Internet traffic measures
which placed useit among the 10,000 sites with the most traffic. 

In other words, data from your own server logs combined with freely
available information from Yahoo's press releases are sufficient to
give you a pretty good idea of how you rank relative to the other
sites on the Web. People often pay thousands of dollars for this
information, so you have saved a lot of money by reading the Alertbox
today. 



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From bb615 at scn.org  Sat Oct 31 17:25:47 1998
From: bb615 at scn.org (Rod Clark)
Date: Sat, 31 Oct 1998 17:25:47 -0800 (PST)
Subject: Are we wallflowers?
In-Reply-To: <199810312235.OAA07952@scn.org>
Message-ID: <Pine.SUN.3.96.981031171502.15209A-100000@scn>

> Anybody wanna take a crack at determining our popularity?

Steve, 

   For the week of October 19-26, SCN had about 52,293 page
views. (This is a bit conservative, since it excludes all images
and most sound files that people might have downloaded from
links on a page as separate items.)

   144,000,000 / 52,593 = 19,166. So SCN is about number 19,000
among the 3 million or so sites on the Net, according to this
formula.

Rod Clark

> N = Y/T (where N = your site's popularity rank.  Y = page views on 
> the Web's most popular site.  T = your site's traffic in page views)
> 
> Yahoo's traffic in September 1998 was 144 million page views per day,
> ...
> www.useit.com received 110,360 page views per week. Thus, the formula
> says that useit had a popularity rank of 1,008,000,000/110,360 =
> 9,134. 


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From steve at advocate.net  Sat Oct 31 17:35:33 1998
From: steve at advocate.net (Steve)
Date: Sat, 31 Oct 1998 17:35:33 -0800
Subject: Are we wallflowers?
Message-ID: <199811010143.RAA20815@scn.org>

Way cool.  If true, this puts us in the top 1% of web sites!


------- Forwarded Message Follows -------
Date:          Sat, 31 Oct 1998 17:25:47 -0800 (PST)
From:          Rod Clark <bb615 at scn.org>


144,000,000 / 52,593 = 19,166. So SCN is about number 19,000 among
the 3 million or so sites on the Net, according to this formula. 
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