split

OK... cheers for reminding me. Very busy at work at the moment - I'm
trying to do a dozen things at once - but why not make it 13?

The ifis-list has now been split into ifis-chat@ and
ifis-announce@ If anyone still sends mail to ifis@ it
is now sent to ifis-chat FOR THE MOMENT. The membership of BOTH lists
is, for the moment, identical to the old list - feel free to mail *ME*
(not the list) if you want to be added or removed from one or the other.

I don't yet have time to set up the MODERATION of
ifis-announce@, so at the moment ANYONE can send
announcements. This is a temporary "option c" for the moment, on the way
to "option d" when I can find the time to set up the moderation. When I
get around to it, comittee members, or myself, will be the only people
able to post directly. Any other posts will be sent to me for
moderation.

I will (re)move the plain "ifis" alias once I'm fairly certain that most
people are using "ifis-chat" and "ifis-announce" properly.

There IS still Jenny's issue about exactly WHAT should be sent to WHICH
list. The main problem is that we have several groups of people:
students who want to chat about sci-fi on-line
students who never notice notices and want email announcements
locals who want to chat on-line
locals who never even walk past notices on campus.
people miles away who still want to chat but don't care about
video evenings or possibly even libraries.

For the moment I suggest (but won't enforce) the following guidelines:

ifis-announce: "Video evening tomorrow"
ifis-announce: "Christmas dinner arrangements"
ifis-announce: "sci-fi convention next weekend in birmingham"
ifis-announce: "AGM next week in ALT3"
ifis-announce: "that sci-fi shop in egham is having a book sale!"
ifis-announce: "New series of blakes 7 starts december 12th" if you're
just telling us?

etc.

ifis-chat: "New series of blakes 7 starts december 12th" if you're
intending to chat about it too.
ifis-chat: "that sci-fi shop in egham is actually quite expensive"
ifis-chat: "where's our bloody library"
ifis-chat: "grumble moan insult jenny whine whinge"
ifis-chat: "gripe mutter insult jacqui whilst we're at it, criticise nag"
ifis-chat: "Why have I got too much email"
ifis-chat: "how should we REALLY split the list"
ifis-chat: "what should we do about all these damned ex-students"
ifis-chat: "what should we do about all these damned students"
ifis-chat: "borg v death-star, value of pi near black holes, etc etc etc"
ifis-chat: "isn't terry's / douglass' / whoever's new book really cool?"

ifis-chat should probably be the kind of stuff we TALK about down at the
pub. ifis-announce should probably be the kind of stuff we grab
everyone's attention for and SHOUT about down at the pub, and/or put up
posters for, give out leaflets, etc.

These are just my guidelines. As you can see, I'm not even certain about
all of them myself. Better suggestions are welcome - rant and rave about
this on ifis-CHAT please, not ifis-ANNOUNCE.

And remember, if you want to be added to or removed from one of the
lists, contact ME, not the list. that's nick@

back to work...

Nick Waterman, Network Manager, Cimio Ltd. nick@
http://www.noseynick.org/ Team AMIGA! #include <stddisclaimer.h>
There is a red telephone on the desk beside you. Start World War III.
Report at length on its socio-political effects, if any.