I'm finding that some people are still having trouble with JISCmail in
terms of HTML garbage, and the reply function, which seems to bounce some
mails and not others. There's also a problem of volume, and when the list
really gets its teeth into a subject, one or two people always leave,
although of course new members are also joining all the time...
Is it time to switch to a blog?
This list has now been active since April 2005 - 4 months - and has already
developed quite a distinctive personality. I am thinking that more people
should be having the benefit of these intriguing discussions, and more
people could read them on a blog than trying to plough through JISC's rather
unfriendly interface.
I would like to propose that we consider launching a blog in September and
switching our discussions over there for a trial six month period. We could
keep the WDL list as a membership list, and for special moderated
announcements, but move the bulk of the discussion to a blog.
I also propose that the blog be run by a team of WDL contributors - in a
similar way to group blogs like Crooked Timber http://crookedtimber.org/ or
Misbehaving http://www.misbehaving.net/ or Terra Nova
http://terranova.blogs.com/terra_nova/ although I'm still happy to take the
lead and do the necessary management etc.
When I began this list there was only me, and I was reluctant to be solely
responsible for what might become a very active blog, but now that we have a
critical mass, I think we can easily get together a core team of writers to
feed it with information and discussion. Writers would have to agree to
commit to at least a month, preferably three, and there would have to be
some agreements about protocols etc, but lots of people do it that way and I
can't see there would be a problem.
The benefit of a blog would be that one reads the entries via the web, at
the blog itself or with an aggregator like Bloglines. There's no email
filling up your inbox and you can save the posts which interest you or of
course email them to yourself if you wish.
The downside would be that posts can only be initiated by the writing team,
although the comments system means that the conversations they spark off can
continue as usual. And of course, we could retain the topic voting system if
people like it.
I've set up a poll which asks whether you would like to trial a blog for the
list, and also invites you to put yourself forward as one of the writers.
I look forward to your thoughts.
Sue
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