[amsat-bb] YAL: Ok, I did it this time.

[ne1h@xxxxxxxxxx]

All,

WARNING - YAL = Yet Another List (ok, take your shots)

I've created a group on yahoo groups that is an archive of this 
list.  I know there is an archive on amsat.org, but I have a very 
restrictive email policy and firewall at my office.  I like to read 
the BB, and contribute from time to time, and the yahoo group allows 
me to do both.

I'm also a fan of decreasing the amount of traffic that the amsat-bb 
server has to deal with.  For example, my slot in the email listing 
would take 20 mins to deliver messages.  I would get reponses to my 
posts before I ever saw my original message.  While I didn't fix that 
problem, I did unsubscribe my "email" from the BB list because my 
yahoo group has proven to be just as good.  It also has the advantage 
of acting as a filter or sorts, I can scan the subjects and if I dont 
want to deal with that thread, I just simply skip it.  No more delete 
and houseclean.  I was also keeping all my messages so I could go 
back and look at them.  As you can imagine this list takes a fair 
amount of storage space.

While a search engine will be available on the amsat.org site at some 
point, it's available here now.  

Bottom line, I wanted to store the messages, maintain the threads, 
search from time to time and share other information.  So I created 
this group.

This group is kinda of special group as it relates to Yahoo groups.  
It's called a "remote" group.  It's actually subscribed to the amsat 
listserver and so it gets messages directly (still with a delay 
because of where it is in the email list).  You *can't* post to the 
yahoo group, it simply reflects the amsat-bb list.  At some point, I 
will open "posting" up on the yahoo group which will allow you to 
post directly to the amsat.org site... But for now, you'll still have 
to use email.  I want to make sure we don't cause any problems for 
the BB before I do open that option.

If you are a lurker, you can try either, they will still work for 
you.  I've made reading on the yahoo group a public option, anyone 
that finds the list can read the messages.

Some of the things that I like about the yahoo group is that it has 
the ability to carry on chat, upload files, create polls, databases, 
bookmarks, calendars, etc.  While some of that I have turned on, most 
I have not as of yet.  Just think, we could keep the ANS satellite 
information there in a database or a table.

At the current time, I've restricted membership to approval 
based.  I just simply want to maintain a little control at the 
beginning to make sure we don't cause any problems for the "real" 
BB.  I'm striving to be a considerate inet user.  I'll take that 
restriction off if this group is of benefit and we cause no 
interference with the BB.

I've already shared this with a few of you and you felt that it would 
be a good service to provide to more people.  I have no vain reason 
for doing this, you can be assured that there is no spam involved and 
no commercial use will be made of the email addresses that are 
subscribed.  If you are concerned about that, simply lurk :).

For some reason, the list doesn't show up if you search yahoo 
groups.  I don't know why, I have it listed.  We'll see if its just a 
slow search update.

If you'd like to check it out.  I've enclosed a link to it.  Feel 
free to lurk, join, give me feedback, etc.  I suppose that if there 
is a big uproar for this kind of thing.... I'll just lock it down and 
use it for my self.

One last comment before I leave the link.  If you do find it useful 
and as a replacement to your email account for amsat-bb.  I would 
suggest that you do like I have and unsubscribe from the BB directly 
via email and give the bandwidth back to those that prefer email 
only.  If you do subscribe, please make sure you select the option 
you'd like in either "every post" or "daily digest" or web only.

Thanks and enjoy.
Alan

ps. remember, I'd like your feedback

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/amsat-arch

The groups name is amsat-arch (but for some reason you can't search 
on groups.yahoo.com and find it.  I have no idea why.


Ok, I hope I didn't upset the natural balance of the "real" list with 
this ???

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