[greenbuild] Introduction
- From: Joe Nolan <jnolan@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: greenbuild@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Tue, 03 Apr 2001 13:55:08 -0400
(from Todd Saddler, posted by Joe Nolan)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Greetings, everyone!
One of the ideas that was repeated most often at the March 10 conference on
building for sustainable living was, that we should start a list serve to
facilitate communication about sustainable building. Joe Nolan, who promised
to facilitate this, has discovered a place that provides free list serve
support, and has set us up. (applause)
The list serve now includes 29 people who were at the conference, plus
several people who asked to be added to the list or kept informed about any
developments, plus several members of the Fingerlakes Natural Builders
Network.
You should have received a WELCOME message today, which details how to post a
message to the list, how to subscribe, how to unsubscribe, and where to go
on the internet to change the settings which determine how you receive
postings from the list serve.
MORE DETAILS
All of the matter below is either undecided or subject to change. Joe and I
made choices where necessary to get things started, but none of this is set
in concrete. I am posting this information in the interests of transparency
and participation. If you have ideas about the list serve that you want to
propose, oppose or support, or relevant information that should be
considered, please post it.
On the other hand, if these details aren't important to you, feel free to
ignore them and let the rest of us hash things out.
THE FOCUS OF INFORMATION AND DISCUSSION THAT WE HOPE WILL BE FOUND IN
POSTINGS TO THE LIST SERVE. The purpose of a focus is to create a filter
which assures that most of the information posted is likely to be of interest
to the subscribers. The "focus" will be kind of like the theme of an Open
Space conference; it's what enables people to identify the common interest
which brings them together. No one will police the postings to accept or
reject certain subjects.
I propose that our focus for this list be defined in terms of bioregion and
in terms of a built environment which facilitates sustainable living. By
bioregion, I'm thinking of a geographical area larger than the city of Ithaca
and smaller than the state of New York, which contains people who are likely
to be dealing with similar issues and who are likely to have opportunities to
meet face to face. What do you think?
THE NAME OF LIST SERVE. The name has to be brief, coherent, related to the
focus. Catchy and easy to remember would be a plus. To get things started,
we chose "greenbuild". If you can think of a better name, throw it out
there and we'll discuss it.
LIST SERVE PROTOCOL. These are guidelines that have more to do with form than
content.
Some of the ones that are used on other list serves, which seem reasonable
to me, are:
1) No attached files.
2) No flaming
3) When responding to a prior posting, the subject should always be
"RE:-----". Example; You post a message with the subject "solar panels",
everyone responding to what you said would use the subject "RE: solar
panels", so that everyone can follow the conversation.
4) Any messages that are not of general interest should be e-mailed to the
individual(s) concerned, and not posted to the list.
THE ORGANIZATIONAL AFFILIATION OF THIS LIST SERVE. Sometimes a list serve is
affiliated with an organization, which ultimately has some responsibility for
the use of it and has some control over it. Apparently, though, a list serve
is not required to be affiliated with any organization. In keeping with the
spirit of Open Space, I would propose that this list serve not be bound to
any formally recognized organization. At this point it is not.
THE LIST MANAGER. The List Manager is the person who sets up the list serve
and does some occasional maintenance and/or supervision. Sometimes, a person
or group of people serve as moderators or editors or censors, but I hope that
won't be necessary in our case. Joe Nolan has expressed a willingness to set
up our list serve. Hopefully, it will function automatically with very
little management.
THE SERVICE PROVIDER. A List serve consists of an application (a bit of
software) on a server (big computer in a closet or basement somewhere) that
belongs to someone. The service we are using at present has the advantages
of costing nothing, and of having no advertising attached to the messages,
and of having an archive where you can find past postings. There may be a
catch or a drawback, but we don't know of it yet. If this service doesn't
work out, we have other options. Ecovillage has offered to let us use their
server, or we can set up a list serve through Yahoo.com which is free but has
advertising attached to every posting.
Those are all of the issues I can think of. If you think of anything else
that needs to be considered, put it out there and we'll see what people
think. Once these matters start to gel, we can add them to the WELCOME
message that every subscriber will receive and hopefully save for reference
purposes.
See you in cyberspace!
Todd Saddler
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