[23125] in APO-L
Re: [APO-L] -L format
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Robert Dean)
Wed Nov 6 11:20:59 2002
Date: Wed, 6 Nov 2002 11:20:53 -0500
Reply-To: rdean71@CS.COM
From: Robert Dean <rdean71@CS.COM>
To: APO-L@LISTSERV.IUPUI.EDU
"Vehlow, Richard" <Richard.Vehlow@OGS.STATE.NY.US> wrote:
>With all due respect, this is almost 2003 and no longer 1988 (when
>APO-l was founded) or 1993 (when APOSOC was founded). How much longer
>before we can get with the times? If someone out of 500 subscribers
>still reads email on a vintage TRS-80 with 300 baud modem, do we
>still have to keep the list at their level, or can we encourage them
>to finally move up in technology level?
Technology is good. I make my living on technology. HOWEVER, moving to new technology for the sake of moving to new technology is nonsense. What *compelling*, thought-out reason can you give me to justify coping with the obvious disadvantages?
>I do a newsletter in Word format for my engineering society and send
>it out as an attachment to over 200 people- some at home. I have yet
>to receive one complaint that said newsletter can't be opened. I
>venture to say that a vast majority of APOSOC people here are capable
>to receive rich mail and attachments.
If the product is a newsletter, it should be formatted as rich text *and posted on a website*. Do you know how much overhead it introduces to distribute a MIME attachment or uuencoded file as opposed to posting it on the web and letting people download it on their own time (give you a hint...it's greater than 1/8 (12.5%))? We may have the resources, but that doesn't mean that we should waste them. This is true in technology-land just as it's true in the environment.
>In my chapter, years ago i was laughed at when I first suggested
>that chapter newsletters be sent by email. "Who would read their
>email" was the quote. Within about 3-4 years, email newsletters
>became the standard in our chapter, and are now widely done in
>most chapters at least. Likewise who knew anything about the web
>in APO 10 years ago? So, I think it's not a question of if we
>should upgrade but when.
E-mail newsletters work in a chapter setting because they are internal to the chapter. Section 48's experience with the move to electronic newsletters does not support the notion that it's the way to go. We found that the message wasn't getting to the chapters, because nobody was reading the e-mail (likely skipping it, intending to get back to it later, but then they don't).
LFS,
Robert
