Subject: Re: [lojban] where the mailing lists lie

From: Jay Kominek <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 19 Apr 2002 01:09:34 -0600 (MDT)

On Thu, 18 Apr 2002, lojbab wrote:

> Not finding Yahoo Groups tolerable is their problem, more than it is
> ours.

It'll be ours when Yahoo starts selling our names, addresses, etc.

I think it is also already our problem, as I'd bet that the people who
feel strongly about such things would be more likely to contribute to the
list than those who'd stumble across it via Yahoo.

> I don't know who your 3 people are, Jay, but there are certainly many who
> object to Yahoo, some very strongly, but who put up with it anyway because
> they want or even need the content.

The main one is jezrax, who is fairly active on the Wiki, but refuses to
join the list because he read the privacy policy.

(IRC user comatoast(?) is another. I can't recall the third. No slight to
either of them, jezrax just sticks out more in my mind.)

> It'd be nice to avoid the ads, but we are getting good service and free
> advertising of our own.

The ads are a non-issue. Yahoo is making it quite clear that they have no
respect for our privacy, by running around with these plans to sell off
our personal information.

> [stuff snipped I'm too lazy to go back and get.]

It is worth noting that it is easy for the administrator(s) of a Yahoo
Groups list to get the email addresses of everyone currently on a mailing
list, thus allowing them to be automatically subscribed to a new mailing
list. (So we wouldn't lose anyone in the switch, unless they specifically
dropped after the switch was completed.)

> This doesn't count the beginners list, or any of the other lists now
> hosted on Yahoo.

FYI, lojban-beginners is up to 82 members, in ~9 months, with a fair burst
of subscriptions recently.

> Other than catering to some people's preferences (and the nature of those
> preferences or the tradeoffs have not really changed since we set up the
> list),

The tradeoffs have indeed changed since Yahoo started wanting to sell our
personal information.

> I haven't seen anyone post any actual *advantages* that we would
> gain by hosting it at lojban.org, and we would lose the advertising and the
> relatively convenient interface.

We'll have our privacy respected. We'll not have to look at ads to access
the archives. (That is getting tiring, awfully fast.) We'll have better
access to future archives. (Yahoo is making it very very difficult to
acquire the archives in an automated fashion. So if they ever decide to
dump the archives, which I've heard rumours of, then we might not be able
to duplicate them so as to save them.)

It isn't so much a matter of advantages, as lists are relatively
simplistic things. Rather, it is what disadvantages we can avoid.

> Personally, considering that we are a charity organization that is not even
> managing to break even with donations (there are a lot of you out there who
> support us by buying books, but that isn't enough to cover the operating
> costs of the organization - donations have actually been smaller in the
> last couple of years despite all the increases in activity), I think we
> have done remarkably well in minimizing the amount of commercialization
> that we have had to deal with. Unless some big donors (or lots more little
> donors) start showing up to pay off the LLG debts and operating costs, ads
> are going to creep in somehow. (But we won't sell our mailing list; I will
> stick to that commitment as long as I have the power to do so).

Er, I don't get this. Robin can run the lists for free. I could get the
lists run for free if need be. Adlessly. With our privacy respected. With
no need to tell them someone you don't know your marital status or annual
income. We can minimize the commericalization, for free. So saying "we
should be glad we're not more commericalized!" is silly.

> Thus issues of list management will be decided by Cowan (and me) in
> our executive capacity, pending any discussion or policy change decision by
> the voting membership at the annual meeting during LogFest (the voting
> members can of course change any LLG policy within legal and bylaw
> constraints %^).

I hope, then, that the online poll will merely be a preview of the way in
which the voting membership will vote, come next LogFest.

If I can't make it, I'll be sure to mail a couple of copies of the poll
results to be passed around at LogFest. :) (Including an accounting of
those people who can't cast a vote online.)

- Jay Kominek <[email-masked]>
Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose