Why The List is the Way It Is... Mike L. Varney 14 Feb 2006 16:20 EST
There's been lots of discussion on RESADM-L in the last week or two regarding all the details of running RESADM-L and the prospects of moving to a Google Group. I'd like to address a couple of the comments made. First, whomever was saying that you can't search RESADM-L's archives just isn't reading the tagline at the bottom of EVERY list message for the last 3 years or so... <grin> RESADM-L has always been searchable even back in the days it as hosted on a mainframe. In fact, when I implemented the web-based interface to the listserv, I was able to import all the archives from the mainframe; so, when you do like the tag says and go to http://www.hrinet.org, you can search all the way back to when Liz ran the list in the early 90's. The fact that people re-ask common questions is just due to human nature; it has nothing to do with the availability of search. In fact, many people (especially in this industry) will INTENTIONALLY ask the same questions again in case there's been a procedure or rule change. Next... regarding the aspect of a "private" versus a "public" list. RESADM-L is a "public" list, meaning that anyone can add themselves to the list at any time. While you would think that would open the list up to Spam, surprisingly it doesn't - - the fact that the ListServ requires a confirmation ("ok") email from the user foils all the spam senders out there. Keeping the list as a "public" list allows us to facilitate as many people to come onto and off the list as possible. Given the lists's topic, it's in our best interest to have as many industry-related users out there as possible in one forum. There was a comment out there about the "vacation" messages sent to someone who sends something to the list. There's a reason for that too. A few years back a new standard for Internet Email came out (one of those annoying RFCs) which said that all Internet email should use a proper From: tag. Meaning, that the From tag should list who the email REALLY came from, *even when the message is from a list*. Those who were on the list years ago remembered how easy it was to identify the list emails, as they were all from "xxxxxx@HRINET.ORG". Now, they show up as being from the person who sent the note, with a Reply-To of the list's address. Any list provider which doesn't conform to this standard will run the risk of being hit by spam filters. Similarly, someone mentioned in-box clutter. ListServ has *always* supported not only the "DIGEST" setting (so you get just 1 message a day), or the "NOMAIL" setting (where you don't get ANY email, and can look at the web archive to read the messages). The list jumped up significantly in traffic a few years ago when we upgraded our server. If the traffic is too heavy, I'd recommend switching to Digest mode. Running the ListServ is no walk in the park; it's not in my job responsibilities here at HRI, HRI gets nothing more than the rest of you do (knowledge) by running the list, and in fact we pay about $3000 a year in licensing fees to maintain the software (in addition to running the server). Talking about in-box clutter... the list generates between 300 and 400 email messages a day for me, 99% of which are just deleted. And that doesn't include fixing all the changed email addresses out there for people. As always... any questions, post 'em here. -- Mike Varney / HRI ====================================================================== Instructions on how to use the RESADM-L Mailing List, including subscription information and a web-searchable archive, are available via our web site at http://www.hrinet.org (click on "Listserv Lists") ======================================================================