Digital BW, The Print

Tom,

First of all thank you for spending so much time looking into this. To
answer Austin's question , a move is being considered because as the list
has grown in membership so has the Yahoo advertising. The advertising has
become particularly annoying to those who access the group directly with
their browser.

To answer your major question, a quick review of the membership settings
indicate that there is about a 50/50 split between those who do and those
who don't receive the posts by e-mail or digest. So there really does need
to be both and the e-mail side needs to provide daily and weekly digests.

On line access should provide the ability to view messages by date (my
personal method of checking the group) and by thread. We are also using the
Files, Bookmarks, Database and Polls features of the group homepage.

I have a backup of all the posted messages on my computer as *.elm films and
a new site must be able to import all 9700 in mass and reconcile duplicate
file names.

The other issue is that the hosting organization needs to be large, stable
and likely to be around a long time. Yahoo has it's faults but it does have
a huge amount of hardware and staff to keep it running and backed up.

All together this is a very tall order.

As far as running a forum goes, it has taken far more of my time than I
anticipated at the beginning. If you add to that the technical side of
setting up software, maintaining a server, do back-ups, etc. the time
investment would be huge.

The best solution would be to get Yahoo to modify their advertising on line
either by persuasion. I have left voice mail with Yahoo and sent an e-mail
about purchasing the ad space. Hopefully I will get a reply as this would be
the easiest solution to our problems (assuming they don't want a huge sum of
money!) If we do pay for this it would need to be done by the members as one
of our founding principles is to be free of any connection to a company
involved in selling products for digital printing.

Once again thank you for your research!

Martin

----- Original Message -----
From: "tomoc" <tomoc@...>
To: <DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Wednesday, February 13, 2002 9:39 PM
Subject: [Digital BW] Update report on search for new forum home


> 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@...
>
>
>
>
>
>
> Please visit the Group Homepage to check the Files, Bookmarks, Polls and
other resources as they are often being updated. The page is at:
>
> http://groups.yahoo.com/group/DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint
>
> Please follow these basic guidelines:
> - Include your full name with your message.
> - Include the address of your website, if you have one.
> - As threads develop, trim off excess portions of earlier messages to keep
them short.
> - As the topic of a thread changes remember to change the subject header.
> - Good manners are required at all time. No personal attacks or "flames."
> - Complete your Yahoo profile.
> - Before posting a question, search the message archives and the various
resources on the homepage.
>
>
>
>
> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
>
>
>