Cohousing-L Mailing List: Cohousing-L message (sort of) from Fred

[Fred H Olson WB0YQM (fholson]

from   Fred H. Olson   Sysop of COHOUSING-L listserv


Cohousing-L is down for a few days (til about 5/31) so I thought I'd 
take this pause in the conversation to send a message with a few 
thoughts.  I'm sending it directly to everyone (hope I don't croak
my mailer...) including to "postponed" subscribers  ( how ya doing? ).
I'm also sending a copy to the list so later you'll get a second 
copy...

********* Re: Profiles of list participants **********

Making more profiles accessable sounds great to me.
A while ago I started a survey form to be sent to a sample of new 
subscribers to get some idea of who's using the list etc.  but that 
survey never got sent.  I wanted to know among other things where 
folks are and how many subscribers have access WWW (or gopher) since 
they are the logical place to store reference sorts of information.  
WWW is the best place to put "bio pages" (aka a person's "home page")
(with occasional list messages about what's available.)  

I concur with someone who suggested that we've gotten so big that if 
everybody introduced themselves over the list it could be pretty 
overwhelming. But I don't really worry about that** -- keep sending 
those intro's...** Most subscribers are likely to continue to be 
'lurkers' ( in myparlance this is not a derogatory term; it just 
describes someonewho almost exclusively reads without posting to the 
list).  I wouldnot expect many lurkers to send introductions (tho they 
are welcometo do so -- maybe they'll start writing occassionally.

********  Gathering info from subscribers / new subscribers ***********

New subscribers get that long welcome message which I suspect few read
which leads me to wonder how many will complete a profile template or
survey ... Quite a while ago I told a few folks that part of 
subscribing was to send a brief intro to me and then send the 
subscribe command ... (as an experiment)
But I didn't know what I was going to do with the 
intros and thought it might be a bit presumptious so I did not keep 
doing it.  And information on how to subscribe has long ago slipped 
out of my hands into the ether so enforcing such a procedure would be 
a bit complicated.  (We could change the list address or name so the 
old address / name just gave the new address / name / procedure, but
that would be a drastic step.)

BTW we get quite a few people who subscribe for a while and then 
unsubscribe (I call this 'churning').  I've thought about encouraging
people to browse the archives to look us over and THEN subscribe
if they like what they find.

*******  In a 5/25 message From: J.Massengale [at] eworld.com John 
Montague Massengale, AIA with Subject: How to Build an Urban Village
posted a review of the book:

"City Comforts: How To Build An Urban Village" By David Sucher
Seattle, Washington, 1995; 176 pp; $18.00 + $3.00 S&H,  Paper.

I just thought I'd point out that David subscribed to Cohousing-L
from 10/93 to 6/94 and posted about a dozen messages.  He probably 
got too busy to continue reading the list (like most people who 
unsubscribe) ...  His email address was (is ?)  dsucher [at] cyberspace.com

***********  changes to the listserver **************

Jon is adding some software to allow less rigid listserver command
syntax.  Hopefully this will reduce the number of errors and ease
list management.  In the meantime there may be some erroneous
error messages related to development of the new flexibility...
Bear with us.

****** Digest subscriber needed as volunteer *************
Occassionally I get a request for extra copies of digest messages.
I do not have access of a source of old digests to satisfy such 
requests.  If there is a digest subscriber out there who 
keeps them around for a month or so before deleting them who 
would be willing to fulfill requests, please send me a note.

******** Summer account changes ???  / disk quotas ***************
If your account will change over the summer or mail will not be read 
etc, please set "postpone" mode (so mail is not sent) or unsubscribe 
as appropriate.  Please try to avoid letting you account to exceed 
your disk / mail quota.  When it does I start getting bounce messages 
and my have to unsub you...  As always, if you have questions
about using the list etc, please write to me NOT over the list for 
help.

See you on the list in a few days.  Right now I need to cook up some 
food for the 25 year reucion of 'new wave' food coops in the Twin 
Cities in a park.  Hope you get to a park while there are fewer
Cohousing-L messages to read :)  If the list is a bit too much,
don't read everything and don't feel guilty - I dont.

Fred

--
Fred H. Olson   fholson [at] uci.com   (612)588-9532  Amateur radio: WB0YQM
1221 Russell Av N, Minneapolis,MN 55411 Sysop of COHOUSING-L listserv;
COHOUSING URL's:  mailto://listserv [at] uci.com (w/ msg: Info Cohousing-L)
gopher://gopher.uci.com/    TC FREENET PUBLIC TEST PHASE: May 29, 1995 
URL's: mailto://info [at] freenet.msp.mn.us  http://freenet.msp.mn.us:8000/