North American Fruit Explorers mailing list at ibiblio

[Ginda Fisher <list@ginda.us>]

I participate on this list, some other e-mail groups, some Yahoo groups, 
and some bulletin-board groups.  I enjoy the conversational feel of this 
one.  Also, perhaps because everyone's e-mail is shown I don't think we've 
ever had a 'troll' and 'flaming' is extremely rare.  In general, I find 
e-mail groups more convivial, more of the 'backyard fence' experience.

Bulletin boards work better for high-volume groups.  Maybe this group is 
getting into that range.  But little looks lonelier on the internet than an 
underused bulletin board.

Personally, I find it easier to search my e-mail archives (I have NAFEX 
back to about 2000) than to search most bulletin boards.  I also frequently 
appreciate that I can use the NAFEX list off-line.  I often read and reply 
to it from my TREO, which doesn't have the bandwidth to make a bulletin 
board enjoyable.

It's probably a good idea to try a bulletin board.  I hope it doesn't kill 
this list.  (both require critical mass to be valuabe.)

NAFEX used to host its mailing list on YAHOO, and moved to ibiblio for a 
number of excellent reasons.  One of those was that we had no ownership of 
or control over the archives on YAHOO, and no promise they would be 
maintained.  In fact, NAFEX, would have lost all the archives from the 
YAHOO days if I hadn't mailed my own copy of the archive to our helpful 
webmaster.  (I do regret for not having edited out the bits of personal 
fruit-related e-mail in that archive, and apologize for that clutter.) 
E-mails from YAHOO are also huge and cluttered - a problem for those with 
limited bandwidth as well as for those who prefer not to wade through ads.
___
Ginda

...... Original Message .......
On Mon, 18 Feb 2008 08:43:14 -0500 Road's End Farm 
<organic87@frontiernet.net> wrote:
>I don't like Yahoo listserve because all the email posts (at least to 
>the one such I'm on) come through full of ads, taking up a large 
>portion of the email window and making the actual post hard to read. I 
>much prefer ibiblio, and have recommended to the Yahoo group I'm on 
>that they switch.
>
>Maybe ibiblio can set up similar options with the advantages you see in 
>Yahoo groups? (I believe digest mode at least is already available) or 
>maybe there's a possible alternate host with both sets of advantages?
>
>--Rivka
>Finger Lakes NY; zone 5 mostly
>
>On Feb 18, 2008, at 7:18 AM, Regina M. Kreger wrote:
>
>> I like Yahoo groups.  I can choose to receive all messages by e-mail,
>> individually or in digest mode -- like this list -- or no e-mail at all
>> for the really busy lists so I can just log in to the list and read 
>> what
>> I want.  It's basically a bulletin board AND an e-mail list, user's
>> choice.  The digests come (optionally) in an enhanced e-mail format 
>> that
>> lets me click on the subject heading at the top of the digest and jump
>> to the message of interest.  I believe it is possible to set it up such
>> that all comers can read all messages, but only administrator-approved
>> members can post (which could be = paying NAFEX members).
>>
>> For those with slow internet connections, it is a good thing to be able
>> to go online, receive mail, go offline and read, rather than having to
>> be online the whole time one is reading.
>>
>
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