Please Read: Important Proposed Changes to Listserv -- Feedback Sought

Doug et al:

The proposed changes sound fine to me.

Thank you.
-Catherine

Catherine Miller
Principal Planner/Section Manager SUSTAINABILITY
Pioneer Valley Planning Commission
413/781-6045

Thanks Doug, I deeply appreciate your work. The FSB list serve is a valuable resource. Restricting posts to a discussion board would create a barrier to my participation. I strongly prefer the easy access of e-mail with the known problems to controlled conformity of a BBS input. I respect which ever direction you choose to head. Keep up the good work.

Jeff Hohensee
Natural Capitalism Solutions

Doug:

Thanks for the question on this. I like the idea of a daily digest so that we can see if we want to engage in a given subject, and putting the rest of it in the web forum. Many exchanges have been useful to me this year, .... And the issues expressed are real and challenging. I support your approach.

George Hoguet

Thanks for all your hard work maintaining the list serve and trying to improve it! I imagine most people on this list serve don't have this problem; but as a rural resident unable to get high speed internet, I hope people won't be posting graphics and reports. They would tie up my computer for hours; and I'd have to drop off. I would also greatly appreciate being able to find postings on the list serve by using a google type search engine. I can't seem to find things I remember being posted with the current system -- for example someone posted an incredible link to enviroschools in a discussion about something entirely different. Under the current system, I would never be able to find it.

Thanks again.
Nancy Adams

This change would make the list much more usable for me. The long spaces, funny formatting and preponderance of un-snipped quotes make the list a pain to read sometimes. Also, the availability of non-text material will be a big improvement. Great solution! Go for it! I will continue to monitor the digest and then click on any topic that looks interesting. And I may look into it for a site that I work on!

vb

Virginia Bruce,
board member Rock Creek Watershed Partners
503-629-5799
http://rcwp.org

Doug

Thanks for the opportunity to respond to planned changes. You've hit the nail on the head. I for one would welcome an online web based platform. It should succesfully clean up this email system which is a challenge to wade through. Many thanks for your fine work!

Mike Frew
ASCA Trust
http://shoppingfix.blogspot.com/
Wellington, New Zealand

Dear Doug

I find forums clunky and difficult to follow, so your suggestion of a daily digest of topics posted would be very welcome if you decide to go down this route. Thanks for the effort to get this right, it's much appreciated.

Amanda

Good news Doug,

You work and the new move to just issue the digest and we can research on line what we want.

Kind regards,
Paul Payten
GEENI

I think your proposed changes sound fine and sensible and will place no additional barriers to my use of your information.

Thanks
- useful information
Pete

Peter Colverson
Communications Specialist
Pandion Systems Inc.
4603 NW 6th Street
Gainesville, FL 32609
(352) 372-4747
Fax: (352) 372-4714
Cell: (352) 359-1283
www.pandionsystems.com

Doug -

I would find it a great loss if I didn't get the regular emails anymore. Despite high volume, I like having them come directly to me. Having to make the extra effort to go to the website to follow the content would significantly reduce my following this very useful list. I'd hate to loose the convenience that we have now.

Susi

Susanne C. Moser, Ph.D.
Institute for the Study of Society and Environment (ISSE)
National Center for Atmospheric Research
P.O.Box 3000 Boulder, CO 80307-3000
Tel.: 303.497.8132
Fax.: 303.497.8125
Email: [email protected]
Web: http://www.isse.ucar.edu/moser/index.htm

Your solution sounds excellent and well thought out. Having links in the e-mails will make it easier for subscribers to target what they are after.

Thank you for your work.
M Lafreniere
Westmount QC

Hi Doug,

I'm very much in favour of the changes and the increased flexibility that discussion forums will bring. May I suggest that either in addition to or in place of the daily digest, an RSS feed of the posts to the forum (maybe with a separate feed per broad topic?) be included? So much online reading and research now takes place via newsreaders... Many thanks to you and the community for their contributions!

Dave Riddell, PhD BEd
Environment and Sustainable Development Research Centre
University of New Brunswick

I agree with Susi's comments too and enjoy the direct delivery into my mailbox instead of having to seek on the net. thanks as well for this fabulous server & service!!

Angelika

Angelika Wilhelm-Rechmann
Nelson Mandela Metropolitan
Unviersity South Africa

I find this method very user friendly. If there is a topic not relevant ( or of interest) to you , you can delete and if there are topics you want to keep you can place in your own archive for immediate access And you get personal responses to your question(s) sent to you.

Kelly

My sentiments echoed below, thanks Doug. Kathleen Esdaile "I would find it a great loss if I didn't get the regular emails anymore. Despite high volume, I like having them come directly to me. Having to make the extra effort to go to the website to follow the content would significantly reduce my following this very useful list. I'd hate to loose the convenience that we have now."

Susi

Doug,

The changes you propose have my support for what it is worth. If the site could be made an rss feed then that might make it easier for some. This is a very valuable service you are operating here and of benefit to so many of us in our efforts to rise to this great challenge.

Cheers,
Patrick

I agree, although I do not always read them, it is fantastic to have a reference point in my personal emails of topics that are relevant to my work and life

cheers
paddy lane

Sustainability and Community Garden co ordinator
Petersham Tafe NSW Austaralia

Doug:

Thank you for providing this important resource, which has been so useful to many of us. For the same reasons that others have mentioned, it would be my preference to stay with the current system if that is possible.

Regards,
Jan

Jan Aceti
Aceti Associates
19 Allen St. #2 Arlington, MA 02474-6809
Ph: 781-646-4593
Fax: 914-931-2038
[email protected]
www.acetiassociates.com

Hi Doug

I feel an email daily digest + links to online discussion forums would be a great improvement on the current email system, which has become unwieldy. A daily digest delivered in the form of an RSS feed would equally appealing to me. Whichever way you go... thank you very much for an excellent resource.

Michelle Shipworth

Re Susi

I also really appreciate the dayly info and inspiration form all participants. But I would also be interested in being able to access all emails sent on a egroup list format. Thanks and please continue your excellent work!

Micheline Lvesque M.Sc.

agronome Solutions Alternatives Environnement
Tel: 514-453-2500
Fax: 514-453-3032
C.P. 289 Ste-Anne de Bellevue H9X3R9

I agree with Susi and also, some websites are blocked by employers and you would not be able to view the message or dialogue.

Wishing you well,
Janice Hilary Dama
Clean City Coordinator
519-974-1010 ext 231

If the FSB group is relocated to a Yahoo! group, users can easily elect to either receive emails, visit the group with their browser, or even both if they are particularly fanatic subscribers. All subscribers can maintain and update their email addresses and preferences very easily. It's a good solution that meets everybody's needs. You can read my recent report on the matter at this blog post. http://waterwordsthatwork.com/2007/03/22/a-network-of-networks-email-lists-
nature-protection-and-pollution-control/

Eric Eckl
Water Words That Work
Http://waterwordsthatwork.com

The proposed changes are a great idea! Change can be challenging to navigate, but it sure sounds like this will be a vast improvement. Katy Vanderpool 206.296.8362

Thank you to everyone who took the time to write regarding the proposed changes to the listserv. I truly appreciate the extensive feedback and your kind words about the FSB listserv and how useful it has been to many of you.

Based on the feedback received we have developed a compromise solution that we believe will accommodate the largest number of users, provide several new and useful features and at the same time be easier to maintain. Roughly 70% of those who provided feedback felt strongly that the proposed changes would be more workable than the present system (for those who did not read my original post regarding the suggested changes, please find the original post below my signature line in this email message). However, a vocal minority liked the present system and did not want to have to go online to read discussion threads. Based on these two main themes in the feedback we plan to implement the following compromise changes to the FSB listserv (Canadians pride themselves on coming up with compromises!). Given the concerns raised regarding having to go online to read discussion forums, the revised system will continue to feature a daily digest that will contain all posts made that day. This "new" digest will offer several significant enhancements over our present digest. The revised digest will begin with a table of contents summarizing the subject headings for the day's posts. This table of contents will be followed by the actual posts organized by discussion thread. Because we will no longer be relying on "canned" software to run the listserv (i.e., we are building this solution from the ground up), we can create a digest that better serves subscribers. More specifically, we will format these posts in plain text (no more distracting html to wade through for those whose email clients don't render html and no original posts tagged onto replies). In short, you will have a clearly organized and succinct digest that will be structured by discussion threads rather than chronologically. That is, if there are five posts in a day dealing with a question on recycling these will all be grouped together in the daily digest, followed by the next discussion thread, etc. Further, at the end of each of these threads in the daily digest will be a link that you can click on to go directly to the respective forum on the FSB site to add a comment of your own. Of course, you will be able to also read these discussion threads online. We plan to introduce several other useful online features, such as RSS feeds, the ability to email to yourself or anyone else a post that is of particular interest, uploading of reports and communication pieces to the discussion forums, and the ability to receive email notification the moment someone replies to a post that you have made. We expect that instant notification will be particularly useful for people who need assistance from others and don't want to be checking the forums for updates or waiting for the digest to be mailed out. We also plan to allow you to easily track your own discussion threads online. That is, from a sidebar on the discussion forum pages you will be able to click on a link that takes you to a listing of the threads that originated with a question or comment that you asked as well as to all of the posts that you have made. From this sidebar you will also be able to easily switch your email address, unsubscribe from the daily digest, etc. We hope to have this up and running before summer and will launch this revision along with an extensively revised website that will include the strategy papers announced previously.

Finally, we are looking for a number of "beta" testers for the new listserv/forums. Long time users of the FSB listserv will know that when we first launched it was with our fair share of technical difficulties. Not wanting to repeat that incident we are looking for users who are willing to participate in testing the revision and help us to work out the bugs before the official launch. Please email me offline if you would like to assist us in this way.

Best,
Doug

Doug McKenzie-Mohr, Ph.D.
McKenzie-Mohr Associates
(506) 455 5061 voice/pager
(506) 455 0550 fax
[email protected]
http://www.cbsm.com

Vive la Canada! :) And thank you, Doug, for all the work that is going into implementing this compromise!

Susi

I support Doug's proposed changes. As a digest subscriber, I often find myself deleting the entire post because I don't have time to scroll through the repetitive messages to unearth the actual content. Doug's combination of web-based information and discussion with email posts linking to the discussions looks like an elegant solution.

Joel Gagnon

Great job Doug! I think the compromise will work nicely!

maryJANE

Mary Jane Rutkowski
Chief, Technical and Educational Services
Operational Services Program
Air & Radiation Management Administration
Maryland Department of the Environment
1800 Washington Boulevard, Suite 710
Baltimore, Maryland 21230-1720
Phone: (410) 537-4163
Fax (410) 537-3391
email: [email protected]