Hello Tim! Welcome to the group! The only way a newsgroup, or this list, could be more controlled is if I (or a team of moderators) read and approved each posting before it could go out. This by itself would slow things to a crawl.
Plus, by the nature of usenet news, messages would take days or more to propagate to the entire usenet world, meaning we would totally *lose* the near-real-time exchanges we take for granted here. You wrote: > More often than not, replies to the thread in this list, have > nothing to do with the thread! The same as in any forum where the listowner doesn't massage every message before it goes out. I've elected not to put the list in full moderation mode for the sake of the responsiveness I mentioned above. I rely on the fact that it is a privelege to post on the list, and that I can remove any individual at any time if they abuse it. This leads to responsible behavior and considerate use, most of the time. We always *can* do better with subject lines and OT stuff. But more on that below... > With a newsgroup, you would have the ability to subscribe to the > group; get the message headers, then open only the ones you were > interested in, instead of having your mailbox filled with junk that > you have to delete individually, ( not wanting to miss anything > good). Actually, the key to using mailing lists well is learning how to organize your e-mail. Do you use MS Outlook, Eudora, Pegasus Mail, Forte Agent? These are e-mail programs I know for a fact will sort your incoming mail so each mailing list ends up in a separate folder or mailbox. This avoids the whole "mailbox filled with junk" deal. These filter or sorting functions, sometimes combined with the "twit filter" feature, are a vital tool to sane list use. I open each folder in turn -- when I'm interested -- scan for good looking threads, read what I want, and delete or keep what I choose. Once a month or so I delete any unread messages over "x" weeks old since I'm never going to get to them anyway and I don't want my disk to fill up. It's fantastic once you get the hang of setting it up in your e-mail program. > Actually, two newsgroups would be better. ... > The silver list is growing, because silver works. > > Soon, the silver list will become unmanageable. You read my mind (and others')! I am in the process of getting the silver list archived so folks can search for past discussions. That's step one. Step two is fleshing out the web site to provide a place for newcomers to get grounded in the subject, to store the FAQ's, and provide a place to post experimental results. Sort of a repository for the "consensus of the list." Step three, which is not far off, is to start an alternative health list as a sister to the silver-list, where most of the off topic stuff we get here will be *on* topic. The goal will be to provide the same sort of sheltered, cooperative environment we have formed here. With all this, volume on the silver list will go down some and S/N ratio will go up. We'd still have a place for all these freewheeling discussions. But one thing that will never disappear is a certain level of "noise", in the form of OT questions and chit chat. Some of this is necessary to keep the sense of community going. Without that, we lose more than you can imagine. That's the plan, anyway. If you can see any way to make it happen faster, I'm open to collaboration!! <GRIN> > I believe in it, use it, make it, don't sell it.. > > Let's get a newsgroup. If you can show me how it will improve things, I'd consider it. But I think we're going to get the bases covered by another route. The concerns you have are right on as is your analysis of the future, IMHO. Hopefully we'll be ready for it. Thanks for the ideas! Mike Devour silver-list owner [Mike Devour, Citizen, Patriot, Libertarian] [[email protected] ] [Speaking only for myself... ] -- The silver-list is a moderated forum for discussion of colloidal silver. To join or quit silver-list or silver-digest send an e-mail message to: [email protected] -or- [email protected] with the word subscribe or unsubscribe in the SUBJECT line. To post, address your message to: [email protected] List maintainer: Mike Devour <[email protected]>
