There have been several suggestions to change (hopefully improve) our (the
netcdf group's) communication method(s). As I listen in, I lean more and
more to the notion of providing multiple services. I particularly liked
Lloyd Treinish's suggestion for two levels of netcdfgroup mail. So I
embellish slightly and suggest:
1) Limited netcdfgroup service be provided via monitored _mail_ on which
only announcements of general interest and perhaps summaries of
particularly interesting _discussions_ are posted to subscribers - a sort
of netCDF.announcements.
2) Full netcdfgroup service be provided as a Newsgroup with the _option_
to receive the traffic as mail. While true that a certain amount of trash
will show up on a Newsgroup, it has been my experience that narrowly
defined Newsgroups with a high percentage of serious correspondents (us
exactly!!) do not provide a fertile environment for random noise
generators. Also, many serious Newsgroups monitor themselves and do not
place an extra burden on an official monitor, such as UCAR. Silly and
irrelevant postings to such Newsgroups (comp.lang.eiffel,
comp.lang.smalltalk, and comp.object come to mind quickly) get _FLAMED_
immediately by the general readership - informing the miscreants of their
transgressions and inviting them to cease forthwith to garbage up the
(netcdfgroup) ether.
3) The traffic from 1) and 2) be provided for _some time_ as archived
files available via anonymous ftp as a service to those who join us
downstream and want to get up to speed and to those forced to abandon their
internet connections long enough to miss a stretch of traffic.
It is difficult to know when a discussion such as this has peaked, but
certainly we are approaching the point of diminishing returns. Do we hear
a hue and cry for the administrators to call a halt while they estimate the
effort to implement various suggestions, and then propose a vote on a
specific (set of) proposal(s) which they are willing to support? I'm for
that.
- Mike
**************** Mike DeVaney ******************
* Pacific Northwest Laboratory * (509) 375-2435 *
* Battelle Boulevard m/s K1-87 * FAX (509) 375-6631 *
* Richland, WA 99352 * dm_devaney@xxxxxxx *
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