🚀 go-pugleaf

I'd like to follow up with support for this gateway idea. Please read
these posts carefully if your reaction is "Why bother? We're talking
about creating r.m.bluenote.blues?"

There are two reasons that the gateway will work better than a list:

1. We have a large number of participants who can only access Internet
mail. Converting this list to a newsgroup will delete them from the
discussion, and many have very valuable things to contribute.

2. Despite the occasional (well, perhaps frequent) "frank exchanges,"
as they say in the diplomatic world, the level of discussion on
blues-l has been very, very good. The s-n ratio is immeasurably small,
and the biggest "problem"on the list has ben people who post gigantic
volumes of information about blues artists (entire discographies, etc)
to the list. A usenet group would be happy to have such a
problem. Turning this into a newsgroup would mean that many people --
myself included -- would no longer follow the discussion as closely. I
read every blues-l digest because I know that basically every post
will be about blues, written by someone who cares about blues, and
even if I don't agree with it, it will make me think/smolder/laugh/buy
a CD. With the newsgroup, I'd have no such guarantee, and would lose
touch with the group.

3. The gateway -- as I understand it -- would solve both problems. The
list subscribers who want to read the list via the group would be able
to do so, using their newsreaders as they please. The list would
pretty much stay the same, with the same quality of posts and
material. Subscribers' messages would appear on the newsgroup, and (is
this true?) others would be able to crosspost and respond within the
group without affecting the list.

4. The list remains unmoderated. We have had very sharp differences of
opinion on the list, and some attempts have been made to restrict
various types of postings or to impose rules ranging from "No
discussion of rap music" to "Send long postings to a different list."
So far, the lack of a moderator has forced those with extreme opinions
(including myself, on occasion) to live within the general community
rather than trying to co-opt a moderator, and has avoided the problem
of a moderator who seems to "take sides."

I for one would be very, very disappointed if blues-l were to go away
and be replaced by a newsgroup. Frankly, I'd probably spend a few
hours writing a perl program to convert a list of subscribers to the
list into a kill file for nn so I'd only see posts from the
subscribers.

Please consider this carefully. Thanks.


-- 
Ken Ficara                                                      ficara@acm.org
       Compu$erve: 71311,1461 / AOL: KENFICARA / Prodigy:(NOT!)