Re: [OMC-Boats] NEED LIST MANAGEMENT

In some ways, perhaps the list is a victim of it's own success.

As the creator of the list, I was a bit dismayed to come back from
three days away to find over 200 messages in my "bulk mail" folder
(some were not from the omc boats list).

Nonetheless I took several hours and plowed my way through all the
messages, and I can see both sides. I'm glad the list is a community
for help and encouragement to owners (I'm not even a powerboat owner!)
both experienced and new. I was also glad to see members who don't
often post offering tips.

Here are some thoughts:

I set up the list so that "reply to all" is the default (and
getting anything ELSE is hard); I did this because early on lots of
discussions ended up going "off line" unintentionally.

Because of this I urge everyone to try and think twice "am I saying
something new?" before hitting the reply key!

Reading the list in gmail might be useful, because it collects
messages into "threads" by subject line and message ID, and you can
skip threads you're not interested in. I'm tempted to start reading
the list that way.

Both google and yahoo offer web interfaces to groups that (I think) do
this for you, but I stuck with a "listserver" I can run 'cause it's
what I'm used to (I don't like "point and click").

If at any point someone else has other ideas that people like, I don't
feel I need to run the list, and would help transfer ownership
(I would only want to make sure the group had a good steward).

I probably wouldn't follow the group at all if it was only available
as a "web board", and I wouldn't have learned about easy outs and
reverse threaded drills!

Finally, this is probably one of the most diverse groups (in any
number of ways) that I'm a member of, and I really like that about it.
I'm pleasantly surprised and pleased that there are almost no pissing
matches -- at least compared to other lists I'm on!

Phil
Received on Friday, 14 August 2009