I just read the article David suggested we read. It must have been a long talk! Lots of food for thought and great trepidation.
I am going to take a chance at making people angry and talk about what has gone on behind the scenes and why the gentle attempt to help split off some of the traffic anticipated for this list occurred now. Greg Kreis, who is on travel and probably will not even see posting, was on the horn with me about another subject and expressed his concern that the list was having so many postings that it was getting hard read them all and that when he saw the response to the NY Times article, he figured when VO was released that the Hardhats would be inundated with postings. It was not the inundation he was most concerned about. It was that those who came to Hardhats would be rapidly turned off by the technical discussion, it would scare them off, dropping any thought of using VistA at all. They would be a permanent loss to the community. I told him that there were plans to gin up the VVSO (VistA Vendor Support Organization) web site into something with one or more email lists for users, places to donate interfaces and templates and objects and the like, etc., so that he might talk about it with Maury Pepper to see if the VVSO site could help. I suggested Maury because he is part of the VVSO team but I thought since he was probably not in as much of a state of severe sleep deprivation as the rest of the VVSO team, he might be able to focus better on the problem at hand. Maury talked with Greg and invited Greg to briefly join the WorldVistA board meeting conference call Thursday night to see if they could come up with a plan that might work out. When a last minute invitation was extended to me as well, I joined in. I think I can summarize the discussion by saying that everyone was fearful of wrecking what the Hardhats mailing list has, which I will not attempt to define, but we all know it is really great stuff. This was just a best guess as to what might be done that would preserve what we have and yet also provide a useful forum for new VO adopters and at least some of the rest of us who straddle the fence between clinical and technical. Greg felt the Hardhats began as largely a Kernel, Fileman, Taskman, etc. infrastructure list so that that dividing line between applications and infrastructure seemed like a reasonable one. The plan was to gently encourage folks to move the discussion of a particular topic to the most appropriate list. That was it. Make the new list that was coming anyway and gently suggest ... nothing more ... and hope that even that is not too much. I think those of us that have an interest in all aspects of VistA would do well to join the other list and just see what happens. It will all show up in you mailbox together and you can hopefully just keep right on doing what you are doing with little change except the things more of interest to the end user might end up on the VVSO list and those more down an dirty, here. As for the Hardhats community/social interaction, I think that will stay right here and I hope a new social institution will arise for the VO clinical users on the VVSO site. There is a whole group of people out there working on VO that read the Hardhats list and never post a word. I found out when I went to one of the "Partners" meetings for VO where I was greeted like an old friend by people I had never heard of because they had read so many of my postings on Hardhats. VistA provides for sort of an instant bonding when you meet someone like that. Hopefully those folks jump in on a list that is more oriented to the sorts of things they are doing with VistA so their expertise and insight can be tapped and we can get to know each other better. Others of those that are reading this and not posting are programmers, and I hope they will eventually feel comfortable letting us know they are here. OK, now it's your turn to chew up bandwidth. I used up more than my share. On Saturday 30 July 2005 05:56 pm, David Sommers wrote: > Why are we splitting lists? I'm treating Hardhats as "The VistA > resource" outside of the VA. Does furthering VistA outside of the VA > involve infrastructure vs support? Do the people that would respond to > Taskman questions not want to hear about setting up DUZ=1 before > entering Fileman? To me - they're related. The same person that > answers that question twice will help build the resource (Wiki) for FAQs > (as we all are), etc. Then when all the easy questions are answered > (which they will), do they go here for the really tough stuff? Wouldn't > they go to the Wiki first and we just remind them on that on their first > newb post? > > Before you reply - give this long (but great) "article" a read: > http://www.shirky.com/writings/group_enemy.html > > If you don't want to read it all, jump down to "Part Three: What Can We > Take for Granted?" (hint: use the browser's find text tool) > > I think we're all well connected to each other and contribute to this > thing we've come to love. > > If someone can explain to me why I don't want to hear about installing > VistA - tell me - because I'm listening and I'm seeing new and exciting > things growing up all around me. [And then tell me what Hardhats is for > again?] > > David Sommers, Architect > > -----Original Message----- > From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of > Joseph Dal Molin > Sent: Saturday, July 30, 2005 1:12 PM > To: hardhats > Subject: [Hardhats-members] Announcing the VistA Office EHR Discussion > Forum > > Dear Hardhats List Members, > > The WorldVistA VVSO has created a discussion forum specific to VistA > Office EHR. Please post all messages relating to VistA Office EHR to > this list. The exception being technical questions relating to VistA > infrastructure issues, such as Fileman, Taskman etc. which should > continue to be directed to the Hardhats list. > > We are creating this list with the full support of the HardHats list > administrators, partly to address the anticipated significant increas in > > traffic and diversity of messages expected with the launch of VistA > Office EHR. > > To subscribe to the new list, go to: > > https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/vista-officeehr-forum > > Thank you, > > Joseph Dal Molin > > Program Manager, VVSO > WorldVistA > > > ------------------------------------------------------- > SF.Net email is sponsored by: Discover Easy Linux Migration Strategies > from IBM. Find simple to follow Roadmaps, straightforward articles, > informative Webcasts and more! Get everything you need to get up to > speed, fast. http://ads.osdn.com/?ad_id=7477&alloc_id=16492&op=click > _______________________________________________ > Hardhats-members mailing list > Hardhats-members@lists.sourceforge.net > https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/hardhats-members > > > ------------------------------------------------------- > SF.Net email is sponsored by: Discover Easy Linux Migration Strategies > from IBM. Find simple to follow Roadmaps, straightforward articles, > informative Webcasts and more! Get everything you need to get up to > speed, fast. http://ads.osdn.com/?ad_idt77&alloc_id492&op=Click > _______________________________________________ > Hardhats-members mailing list > Hardhats-members@lists.sourceforge.net > https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/hardhats-members -- Nancy Anthracite ------------------------------------------------------- SF.Net email is sponsored by: Discover Easy Linux Migration Strategies from IBM. Find simple to follow Roadmaps, straightforward articles, informative Webcasts and more! Get everything you need to get up to speed, fast. http://ads.osdn.com/?ad_id=7477&alloc_id=16492&op=click _______________________________________________ Hardhats-members mailing list Hardhats-members@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/hardhats-members
