This summer, I am leaving NC State University for a position at Meredith College, a small liberal arts college for women about a mile down the road from NC State. I will not be able to continue as EdStat listowner in my new position. Because of various summer commitments, I would like to hand off (or discontinue) the EdStat list by the end of May, at the latest.
If anyone is interested in taking over as listowner, that would be great, and I will do anything I can to help you get started. I think we need to consider, however, whether spam and viruses have rendered the mailing list obsolete. Perhaps the existing sci.stat.edu newsgroup could fulfill the need that has been met by the list.
Some history for those who are interested:
The EdStat list was started in 1991 by Tim Arnold at NC State. Since at least 1992, there has been an associated newsgroup (sci.stat.edu). Messages posted to the list are automatically forwarded to the newgroup and visa versa. Tim left NC State in 1997, and I took over as listowner. In November 2002, because of spam, the list was configured so that only subscribers could post. All messages from nonsubscribers are forwarded to me for approval. This includes messages that were posted to the newsgroup by people who are not subscribed to the list.
To give you an idea of how the list has degenerated, I collected the following data between 5:00 pm on Friday, March 26, and 5:00 pm on Friday, April 2.
32 messages were posted directly to the list by subscribers.
568 messages came to me for approval.
Of the 568, 73 contained large binary attachments that were probably viruses.
Of the 568, 42 were legitimate messages that I forwarded to the list.
The remaining 453 out of the 568 were spam.
Note that more than half of the legitimate messages (42 out of 32+42) were from non-subscribers; most of those were posted to the newsgroup. There are currently 318 subscribers to the list, but many (most?) of the regular posters use the newsgroup.
Please let me know if, despite the data above, you would like to take this on! If no one expresses interest by mid May, I will post instructions about how to use the newsgroup, and I will disable the list.
Jackie -- ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ E. Jacquelin Dietz (919) 515-1929 (phone) Department of Statistics, Box 8203 (919) 515-1169 (FAX) North Carolina State University Raleigh, NC 27695-8203 USA [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Street address for FedEx: Room 220A Patterson Hall, 2501 Founders Drive ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
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