[pianotech] List changes - it's a lot bigger than just the lists...

[Jim Moy]

On Thu, Mar 10, 2011 at 6:03 AM, Mike Spalding
<mike.spalding1 at frontier.com> wrote:
> On 3/10/2011 12:14 AM, Israel Stein wrote:
>> And how do you know that some users were not polled?
>
> We've gone back and forth on this one since the beginning, with absolutely
> no factual information available.  So, how about any list members who were
> consulted give us a brief post identifying themselves?

There was a period of time where the Electronic Communications
Committee evaluated moving from the listserv to something web based,
hopefully to keep up with the times, to leverage the visibility of the
web assets of the PTG (archives) with the search engines, for
establishing general web presence, etc. Having a background in IT, I
was tagged to investigate this and prototyped a solution that,
unfortunately, was only previewed on CAUT and did not receive much
attention, intentionally because of its experimental nature. There are
traces of this from people who are on both CAUT and Pianotech, on or
around these threads in the archives, but most of the activity took
place in the ECC over 2009/10:

  https://www.moypiano.com/ptg/pianotech.php/2010-June/024998.html
  https://www.moypiano.com/ptg/pianotech.php/2010-February/020751.html

With Andy and Ron's help, I integrated the existing listserv with some
forum software much like the one that operates the PianoWorld forums.
The two operated together so seamlessly that very few noticed it
happened. The listserv continued to operate as usual, and the forum
operated in parallel. All emails on the listserv were funneled into a
likewise named web forum, and all posts to the web forum were
forwarded out to the listserv. Those who preferred the email interface
could stick with it, and those who preferred the forum interface could
participate from there. The integration was such that user experience
in both seemed apropos to its environment. It has since been taken
down because of its maintenance issues, and the versions of the
software are now outdated, but it demonstrated an approach that could
move the community in that direction with little disruption. At the
same time, the forum seemed capable of making the PTG archives and
sponsored forums more visible thus raising PTG's stature on the
Internet.

Things were running smoothly on CAUT so the plan, as discussed in the
ECC, was to introduce it to the PTG-L and Pianotech communities after
I had completed importing the archives. But there was a timetable on
the implementation of the Member Max software, and it seemed to take
priority. The Higher Logic community software appeared to come along
for the ride, as it was pre-packaged and already integrated with
Member Max. There was discussion in the ECC about evaluating Higher
Logic, but things happened pretty quickly after that. My impression is
that the details of the work I had done did not gain visibility with
the people at Higher Logic who were doing the integration work with
us, to calibrate their assumptions and expectations. Having spent my
time in the implementation of the prototype, I did not expend much
more energy in promoting it, which I see now was a mistake. Perhaps it
was ruled out from the start since it took volunteer time to maintain.

I did not participate in any of the Higher Logic discussions, so I am
sure I do not have the big picture. The PTG needs to operate within
its processes and budget. But it would be a shame for the community to
reassemble outside the PTG umbrella, as I assume it would were the
listserv disbanded.

Jim Moy