Sebastien;

About the web site, people who want to go there will go and I believe
your suggestions about the site being a repository and resource of data and
articles is a good idea. Except for the registration part.

There is no need to register anyone to access the site. If you want to
have a live Chat Room that's different matter. Register the chatee's only.
Do not everyone who visits the web site and just wants to look around. You'd
be defeating the purposes of strangers to coming to the site, liking what
they see and coming back again or joining a Chat Room. I surely wouldn't
register somewhere just so I could get inside to look around to see if it is
of interest to me.


But, my initial question was and still is, why change the "current"
Guide Mailing List. If I understand the proposal the Guide Mailing List
would be moved to the web site which would require registration. Why? What
*is wrong* with the Guide Mailing List as it is now?

What we have works fine. We have all current posts delivered to us
privately without anyone's knowledge. The posts are delivered quickly,
practically as soon as someone posts it. We don't have to wait for a digest,
we don't have to go anywhere to retrieve anything.

"If the current Guide Mailing List is not broken, don't fix it." That
strategy still applies in this day and age...joe :)

sebastien_vaast wrote:

> Hi Joe.
>
> I don't think anything is wrong with the current mailing list. I only
> think that the site I propose would expand the possibilities offered
> to the Project Pluto softwares users : I hope members would feel
> involved in the community life and write some articles, how-to, etc.
> All these things would appear on a single website, accessible from
> everywhere without any configuration (no mail client needed). I mean,
> the site wouldn't be only used to report bugs and problems, it could
> also be used to help newbies using Guide, help them with astronomy
> related questions, post articles about scopes, etc. Once more, it is
> meant to make the community more and more active, possibly draging
> new members. That point is important I think : a site with tutorials,
> experiences and forums has more possibilies to convince a total
> newbie to buy Guide and use it than just posts available on Yahoo.
> That could be a really interesting means to increase the number of
> users. Adding the site in search engines could drag a lot of
> attention I think.
>
> Concerning privacy, I said in my previous post that you only need to
> give your e-mail address during the registration process and that you
> can change it to a fake one right after. No need to put your true
> name on the site, you can just give a pseudonym. A pseudonym is just
> right in a forum : how could you make a difference between two
> anonymous posts (I mean with no user name) ? Using pseudonyms is just
> a means to put a "name" on people inthe forums. That's a lot more
> safe than the Yahoo mailing list : there is a page here that lists
> all the mail address of the mailing list members : do you feel that
> that's privacy ? Someone could just list all of them an spam
> everybody. Simply put, the MINIMUM personal information loged on the
> site is the IP used by the posters in the forums (and that's just
> used to ban people). If you don't want to use your real name or mail
> address, you're free to put fake ones.
>
> On the site, I'm known as Peter Pan and if I wanted it, that would be
> the ONLY thing people would know about me.
>
> ----
> Sébastien Vaast
>
>
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--
"May You Go Among The Imperishable Stars"

Joe Mize
http://sfo.sciastro.net
mailto:jmize@...
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