Digital BW, The Print

HI everyone-

Thought I should give you all an update on my research on possible 
new homes for the list/forum. 

The first thing I am finding out is that it is important to know if 
we need to remain a "list" with web access or whether we want to 
become a true forum, a web based community without the mailing list. 

I personally have always used the web, finding the email either 
overwhelming (if individual emails) or confusing if digests (and not 
too timely), but I see from many comments that a lot of us are email 
list users. If this is to overcome the ad problem (as many have 
indicated), some of the homes I've found may be suitable...if "list" 
remeains important, there will only be one alternative.

My view is that the technolgoy of DPReview and RobGalbraith.com are 
the best two platforms supporting content that is close enough to 
ours to consider a "merger".

check them out, if you like:

http://www.robgalbraith.com/  (click on enter forums)
http://www.dpreview.com/  (click on forums)

They both have a nice look and clean features that help you by 
threading and summarizing, etc. DP Review responded that they just 
wouldn't have time to transfer our archives. Rob Galbraith said the 
archives would only be possible to transfer to his server if they 
were importable to the Ultimat Bulletin Board infrastructure, which 
he thought was unlikely.

I also checked with both the moderator and the membership of the 
Nikon D1 Users Group forum, a self hosted forum. I think we could 
work out a merger there...this is a terrific platform as well... but 
it does not support the mailing list.

Check this one out: http://www.nikond1.net/

This left 2 alternatives that I am aware of. First would be to 
establish a USENET news group and this is a real possiblity. Google 
now has a very slick interface for newsgroup reading and responding. 
It's not quite as customized as Yahoo groups, but its fast, its free 
and there are no ads whatever.

See an example of this: http://groups.google.com/groups?
hl=en&group=rec.photo.digital  (if this link doesn't work because 
it's on two lines, go to google groups and enter rec.photo.digital in 
the search box). 

Finally, a member of the Nikon D1 Users forum contacted me and 
expressed and interest in helping us start one from scratch "I have 
the server, the knowledge, and the connection. What I need is time to 
manage it. If you want to co-host it, we could probably put this 
together ourselves." 

I don't know if we have anyone here who has the time to step up and 
manage a forum (I don't even know how much time it would take). I 
assume this is not the case or we wouldn't be in Yahoo now???

There is one other option. It has been mentioned on the list. That 
would be to pay Yahoo not to be in an ad environment. I haven't 
checked out this cost. I would be willing to contribute to it, but 
this is probably something that would be "safer" for the list to be 
in some corporate hands. Maybe we should/could approach Epson or and 
ink or paper manufacturer to buy sponsorships?

Well... looking forward to feedback and new direction... if any... 

Tom O'Connell
TomOC@...