🚀 go-pugleaf

       There is an open meeting of people interested in electronic networking
 at the Annual Meeting in New Orleans next week. I'm listed in the program
 as among those to be present, but duties keep me close to home. Could
 someone who will be at the meeting carry in the following concern, about which
 advice is earnestly solicited?

       We have created eleven divisional LISTSERVs for discussions of ed
 research. They are growing in membership and activity. We have renamed
 the general List from ERL-L to AERA (this list). The intent is this List
 will serve as a house organ for the whole membership and the divisional
 lists will carry special discussions and announcements.

      If this AERA list is to achieve its purpose, a couple of things need to
 happen. Nearly all AERA members will have to be reached by it; currently
 there are over 1,000 subscribers but 20,000 AERA members, I believe--so
 there is a ways to go. Many subscribers will be connecting through "pay
 for hook-up" services (Compuserve, AOL, Prodigy etc.). If we envision many
 thousands of AERA members looking for news here and often paying for it
 (in either the sense of connect charges or simply the time it takes to
 read), then this outlet will have to be concise and well edited. It would
 not do to have anyone, possibly lacking a sense of relevance or importance,
 posting huge announcements or incoherent ramblings. That abuse doesn't
 happen now, but perhaps the possibility of it ever happening must be
 dealt with.

      It seems to me that the sensible thing to do is to make AERA an
 edited List and to work hard in the first year or two to define its
 character. Being an edited List means that the Editor can post to it
 and any subscriber can post, but subscribers' postings are first sent to
 the Editor and then forwarded to the List if judged appropriate.

      The AERA-* Divisional Lists would be the place for unedited free-for-
 all discussion.

      Does it seem to others that this plan captures where the AERA List
 should be headed?

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Gene V Glass                                         Glass@ASU.BITNET
College of Education                                 Glass@ASU.EDU
Arizona State University      602-965-2692           Tempe, AZ 85287-2411