Good news for nostalgic Tango-L fans. The Tango-L list will continue, at
least for the time being.
You may recall that the whole issue of closing the lists came to a head
a couple of months ago, when the administrators of the hosting service
at MIT contacted me, pointing out (quite legitimately) that there were
essentially zero (actually one ...) current MIT students or staff on the
list (at least with an mit.edu email address). Since I had been
considering closing the lists for a couple of years anyway owing to low
traffic, I proceeded to do the surveys a couple of months ago and found,
to my surprise, that there were more people who wanted the lists around
than I thought (even though most of those people didn't seem willing to
contribute posts to the list).
So as a first step, Tango-A was closed as a separate list (and
incorporated into Tango-L) since that was a no-brainer given the low
volume. And now the MIT administrators have just confirmed that they are
essentially willing to look the other way (more or less indefinitely)
on the continued presence of Tango-L on their servers, so we just got a
sort-of lifetime free pass. So even though I'm still not convinced
that the volume of posts justifies its continued existence, it's
certainly easier leaving well enough alone than it is porting the list
to a different host. So that's why the list will stick around for the
time being.
At any rate, several good things came out of this exercise. To name a
couple:
- I actually got inspired to do the long-overdue comprehensive archival
project for both Tango-A and Tango-L (which was enough work that I never
found the time earlier to get started on it). The Tango-A archives are
in place (even though the list is closed) and Tango-L will soon be (with
some posts dating from 1991!). (The previous archives for those lists
have long since gone off-line and none was really complete anyway.)
- There was a spurt of activity on Tango-L as a result, which seems to
be continuing for now, though at a low level by a small subset of
members (a far cry from the 20+ posts per day in its heyday). But the
renewed activity, such as it is, has not been accompanied by any
meaningful volume of new subscribers, so it's not like it has really
taken off again either.
QA
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Q. So what's the role of Tango-L now?
A. Well, it's never going to have the importance it did in the early
days of the Internet when it was the only means for electronic
communication across the global Tango community. But it is still a very
particular asset in that a lot of the Tango pioneers who have seen the
evolution of Tango over more than a decade are still members of the
list, and there is probably no other place where so many of them are
represented. Of course, none of this does any good if there is minimal
participation, so I'd encourage them and everyone else to post, and
especially to encourage new members to subscribe (and post).
Q. What does for the time being mean? How long is that in
days/months/years?
A. It means until something happens to bring up again the issue of its
continued existence. I'd guess that wouldn't happen before a year
anyway, but if there are an insignificant number of posts during that
time, it may not be much longer than that. It's ultimately in the hands
of the list members.
Q. I'd like to post but I'm afraid of my opinions being belittled or
being flamed, or being scolded by the moderator for breaking some rule, etc.
A. Well, try it and see. Since the volume is low, I have more time to
moderate the list. There is a zero-tolerance policy on flaming which
WILL be enforced, and there won't be much more leeway on obvious general
rudeness and social-misfit type of behaviour either. (Of course, if
you're concerned about your opinions being disagreed with, I can't help
you there--that's really the essence of a discussion list, isn't it?) As
always, new members and so forth do get more latitude, as do innocent
errors. If you think all this is a good thing, go ahead and post
something. (If you don't, see the next QA for unsubsription
instructions. :-))
Q. I don't get it. On the one hand you are saying that there needs to be
more posts, but on the other hand you're emphasizing adherence to rules?
Isn't something better than nothing, even if it is the occasional flame
or rude posting (beggars can't be choosers, after all)?
A. Not in my book. I have no vested interest in the continuation of the
list no matter what, and therefore have no interest in preserving or
being associated with maintaining a low-end list. And really it's just
the flaming/rudeness rules that are strictly enforced--the rest are more
common-sense guidelines that need the occasional reminder, although I
admit that very few Twitter-like or Facebook-status-update-like posts
(i.e., 1-liners) get through either ...
Q. Regarding the some posts dating from 1991 in the soon-to-be-online
Tango-L archives: How
