Deb Eichten wrote:
 >  ST really needs to upgrade to a better list serve technology.

There's not much point in changing technology if you won't take
the trouble to learn how to use what you've got.  See that link at
the bottom of each and every message posted to this list?  The one
labeled "RSS, archives, subscription & listserv information for:
[email protected]"?  Click on the URL just
below that and you'll get instructions for unsubscribing yourself
from the list... thus eliminating the unnecessary traffic you
create by asking the rest of us to handle your list subscription
for you.

 > Web 2.0 tehcnology allow for blogs by topics as do free web
 > "groups" hosted by gmail and yahoo.

Blogs are a lot harder to set up and maintain than mail lists.  I
don't see you volunteering to do this.  And who's going to decide
what the categories are?  And how do we ensure that people use the
right ones?  And what shall we do with messages that don't fit any
of the categories?  The list server used by ST actually does allow
the definition of categories (topics) that could be used to filter
messages, but that doesn't answer the question of what the "right"
topics are or solve the problem of how to make people respect them
when posting.

As far as I know (feel free to correct me), gmail and yahoo
"groups" are simply email lists like this one with a lot of
advertising added.  I'm grateful that mutualaid.org makes this one
available to us without all that crap.  (By the way, those lists
are used by google and yahoo to track your behavior.  Most people
don't seem to mind this, but I do.)

 > The number of redundant posting strings resulting in 50+ emails
 > daily is closer to SPAM than sharing of valuable information.

I and some others on this list have objected unsuccessfully to
off-topic posts on a number of occasions.  Whether from fatigue or
resignation, I personally have mellowed on this.  Most mail
readers (I use Thunderbird) make it easy to select all messages
with "sustainable tompkins" in the subject line, open the ones
that look interesting, and then delete the rest in one shot.

If the volume of individual messages bothers you, you can always
go to the link referred to above, access the part that says
"change your subscription options" (as you would if
unsubscribing), and opt for the digest view.

Jon


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