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nafex - Re: [nafex ibiblio list] NAFEX fora

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  • From: david.maxwell@dal.ca
  • To: nafex@lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [nafex ibiblio list] NAFEX fora
  • Date: Tue, 20 Dec 2011 12:08:54 -0400


> I have been signed up for the Nafex Ibibliio list for some time,
> even though I was
> not a member of Nafex. Although NAFEX does not advertise it, they
> appear to
> accept all applicants.

I have absolutely no insider knowledge of the history and politics behind all
this, but I rather
suspect that some of those who do, feel they are not at liberty to speak. So
I will give my
surmised analysis, and the NAFEXers can respond or not as they feel
appropriate.

A previous NAFEX executive concluded, a number of years ago, that a forum for
exchange
of information would be a good idea, (essentially replacing the original
round-robin letter roots
of NAFEX). They lucked into ibiblio as a host for their new forum. (Ibiblio
has nothing
whatsoever to do with NAFEX, or indeed any other of the hundreds of special
interest groups
who use their - free - service. It is a public service run by "a
collaboration of the Center for
the Public Domain and The University of North Carolina - Chapel Hill". They
take no interest
in the actual content, but provide the infrastructure to host the storage and
distribution of this
content. Now, the forum was to serve the function of information exchange
for NAFEX
members, so it was, quite reasonably, named "nafex.iblio". However, owing to
the nature of
ibiblio, which is completely open, subscriptions to the forum were not
restricted to dues-
paying members of NAFEX, and over the years an increasing percentage of the
subscribers
dropped their NAFEX membership as they discovered that they still had access
to the forum.
NAFEX became alarmed when they realised that their membership was declining,
and
reacted by trying to recreate the function which was being served by the
iblio forum -
information exchange - but this time in a form over which they could exercise
control - a web-
based forum, (rather than a listserv). As I indicated in a previous post, my
own personal
opinion is that this format cannot compete with a listserv in ease and
efficiency of use. But
the executive of NAFEX saw it otherwise and forged on creating their private
forum,
presumably in the belief that this was essential to the continued existence
of the organisation.
At the same time, to maintain a logical separation, they were obliged to
formally renounce
any association whatsoever with the iblio listserv. So, "NAFEX does not
advertise it"
precisely because they no longer consider it their baby. And, yes, the iblio
forum does
"accept all applicants", because that is the very nature of ibiblio.

NAFEX cannot kill the ibiblio forum, because it isn't theirs. They have
chosen to try to
compete with it, I suspect because they perceived this as necessary to the
survival of the
organisation itself. The "market" will determine the wisdom of this
decision.

<SNIP>
I re-joined Nafex recently, mainly to see what was going
> on with their
> web site. I was not impressed by what I saw.

As I said previously, my own feeling is that this is simply an issue of
functionality and
efficiency of competing technologies

<SNIP>
> Midfex is just now considering
> such a move.
> I plan to keep the Midfex forum on Ibiblio going, no matter what,
> and I believe
> the Nafex administrator is planning a similar thing.

Now we get to the meat. My own feeling is that a listserv serves this
specific need better
than a web-based forum which requires logging in, and Midfex might be wise to
let NAFEX
be the test of this. That is, wait awhile before going down this road, and
see whether NAFEX
actually can make a go of it. And, no, "the NAFEX administrator" is not
planning anything
one way or another in terms of keeping the iblio forum going, because it is
not hers to
exercise any control of. It belongs to ibiblio, and they have neither
incentive to make any
changes, nor expressed intention of doing so.

And, as a wholly gratuitous comment, my personal feeling is that NAFEX, (and
Midfex!) might
be better carving out a "market" in things that are not served by any other
entity, rather than
trying to compete for a function that may be better served by some other
entity.





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