[SustainableTompkins] Maintaining list integrity

[GayNicholson at aol.com]

I agree that the Sustainable Tompkins listserv is not the appropriate  
vehicle for finding a housemate, advertising your business, or soliciting  support 
for causes that, though ultimately connected to a vision of  sustainability, 
are a bit far afield from our original purpose.
 
We set up the ST listserv to provide a place to promote local, regional,  and 
even national conferences and events that are related to sustainability, a  
place to share educational articles on sustainability topics, and a place to  
discuss,debate or ask questions about issues confronting the  sustainable 
community movement.  The overarching goal is to create a  learning community so we 
can improve our capacity to deal with the  complexity of transitioning to more 
sustainable living.
 
Dan Roth suggested we might try a self-administered method of categorizing  
our posts into events, articles, and discussions.  He thought we could put  in 
our subject line a preface such as [article] or [event] to let folks skip  
over the kind of post that they don't have time to read.  This may be  useful.
 
But I do want to urge people to edit themselves when deciding what to  post.  
If you have a need like finding a housemate, it is perhaps better to  blind 
copy everyone in your address book than to send it to a listserv.  
 
I am one of the list administrators and I can not volunteer to turn this  
into a moderated list because of time constraints.  I already get a dozen  or 
more alerts a day from the server about approving posts from non members  (mostly 
spam lately).  
 
I hope we can all take a thoughtful approach to keeping this list  attractive 
to the majority of its subscribers.  Many of us occasionally  mess up and 
post something not quite on target, or forget and reply to the whole  list 
instead of an individual.  We can try and be tolerant of these lapses  while also 
sharing an expectation that we will respect each other's time in a  saturated 
information environment.
 
best to all,
Gay
 
 
 
In a message dated 11/16/2006 4:45:34 P.M. Eastern Standard Time,  
tjs1 at cornell.edu writes:

At 03:07  PM 11/16/2006 -0500, you wrote:
>Hi Patricia,
>
>I'm not  talking so much about geography as about subject matter. ...rest  
>deleted...

Dear List Members--I agree whole heartedly with  Jon.  I "owned", for 
several years, a large, professionally oriented,  topical mailing list (600 
subscribers!) run off the Cornell  listserv.  Off-topic threads had to be 
squelched quickly or I would  have dozens of subscribers resign at once as 
they didn't have the time or  inclination to participate in a mailing list 
that roamed all over the  place.

I think it is important to maintain a focus on sustainability  and have 
posts on animal conservation, anit-war efforts, etc., be  redirected to 
suitable lists or forums.  [Steve, have you considered  setting the list up 
as a monitored list?]  I have enjoyed the list  and have participated in 
discussions on and off, but I plow through over  200 e-mails each day and 
don't want to waste my time on stuff that isn't  related to sustainability, 
either.

My $.02.  Tom

Tom  Shelley
118 E. Court St.
Ithaca, NY 14850
607  342-0864
tjs1 at cornell.edu
http://www.myspace.com/99319958   
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----------------------------------------------------
Gay  Nicholson, Ph.D. 

607-533-7312 (home office)
607-279-6618  (cell)

1 Maple Avenue
Lansing, NY  14882
gaynicholson at aol.com

Sustainable Tompkins 
Program  Coordinator 
w_ww.sustainabletompkins.org_ (http://www.sustainabletompkins.org/) 

Southern Tier Energy$mart Communities
Regional  Coordinator
Cornell Cooperative Extension of Tompkins County
615 Willow  Ave., Ithaca, NY 14850
agn1 at cornell.edu