Thanks Dan, Jonathan. I'm glad to see *something* out of Scott at e-Scribe. I've sent him, I think, 3 or 4 e-mails since the server died and he's answered each one with an explanation of what's going on, but there's been no visible progress. (See: www.escribe.com )
It seems like the machine e-scribe was running on is dead and for some reason not repairable. This may not be standard PC hardware, in which case I understand it. If its Sparc or other higher-end unix stuff, it's certainly more involved than running down to the local Computer Gadget Shoppe for a new power supply. I can see a couple of general options for us now: Approach Scott to see what sort of volunteers he needs, in case it is something that some of us could do. That's as simple as an e-mail from me, so consider it done. Take up a collection for the hardware and other costs, assuming he truly wants to do it and wouldn't rather shed the obligation. Duplicate his whole setup, or maybe persuade him to offload it to us so we can carry it forward without him. I could move us all to Yahoo!Groups or similar offerings from Google. I have serious objections to that: Yahoo!'s archives are of limited size. Their search function is seriously crippled. We would not have control over our data. We'd have no way to import our archives. I'm sure they'd pull the plug on us if big brother told them to. The other option is to put together a community project... Just about everybody has moved to these web bulletin board systems based on phpBB and its variants. My boys each participate in a half dozen of these for their various hobbies. I use several, too, and, depending on how you configure them, they seem to be very convenient and workable. Several things would be needed: Somebody to actually set it up and manage it. That could be me, but I'd have a big learning curve to climb. Now that I'm finally making the move to Linux at home this isn't as much a fantasy as it used to be. <grin> Otherwise we'd need a volunteer or two. We'd have to work out how to import our old messages so the archives would not be lost. That could be a big and complex project. Or not. If the software isn't cheap or free, we'd have to raise money to buy the license. We'd have more ongoing expenses. Whether hosted at Eskimo or elsewhere, it'd cost more that it does now for bandwidth and disk space. Probably a lot more. I'd like people to still be able to subscribe to the forum via e-mail. I think that's possible already, or it may be a reasonable modification to make to the software. Or it could represent a major addition and a lot of work. We won't know until we do some research. I can see a lot of advantages to all this. The current mailing list arrangement is truly archaic. Replacing it would be a wonderful thing. We'd have full control over our data. We would finally be able to integrate the mailing list with the web site with the archives. It would be natural to have a general discussion forum, Off Topic area, and perhaps others, such as a tech zone or beginners' area. If it was a collaborative effort, then I would no longer represent a potential single point failure that could result in the ending of the group. Comments? Any volunteers? <grin> Mike D. [Mike Devour, Citizen, Patriot, Libertarian] [[email protected] ] [Speaking only for myself... ] -- The Silver List is a moderated forum for discussing Colloidal Silver. Instructions for unsubscribing are posted at: http://silverlist.org To post, address your message to: [email protected] Silver List archive: http://escribe.com/health/thesilverlist/index.html Address Off-Topic messages to: [email protected] OT Archive: http://escribe.com/health/silverofftopiclist/index.html List maintainer: Mike Devour <[email protected]>
