Fred, If indeed the new format gets morphed into something more usable, I would be all for it.  If it went back to an email based system, I would be all in favor of a number of lists instead of just 2 or 3. I do like the extensive list of choices on what one might want to see.  We'll see what happens next, but I'm not hearing a lot of hip horrays yet.  Maybe too soon.... Best, Paul <table width=100%> <tr valign=top> <td>From: <td>Fred Sturm <fssturm@unm.edu> <tr valign=top> <td>To: <td>caut@ptg.org <tr valign=top> <td>Date: <td>03/07/2011 10:35 AM <tr valign=top> <td>Subject: <td>Re: [CAUT] New Format--yuck</table> <hr noshade> <tt>On Mar 7, 2011, at 8:31 AM, David Love wrote: > I'm sure that the move to do this was well intended but in terms of my > participation, I can see this has just added enough unnecessary   > steps to > make it questionable as to whether it's worth the trouble.  It's   > certainly > less expedient and that may be enough to push me out of active > participation.  If that was the intention, to make it just that much   > more > difficult to try and remove some of the chatty garbage that tends to   > clog > the lists then I would say it's a success.  But if the idea is to   > encourage > participation by making it easier, then so far it's a failure.                 I don't know anything about interfacing with this using PDA, but I   have found, through a good bit of fooling around to learn the ropes,   that with a laptop it isn't so bad. Certainly different, and not as   convenient, but I am happy to put up with that extra bit of work in   exchange for all the positives. (Maybe the confusion about where posts   come from is due to the PDA notification as opposed to the text option   I use - it is easy to see the difference by the heading showing where   the post came from: caut vs. noreply@egroups).                 We are used to a listserv, with instant communication in a fairly   chatty format. We have two lists, each of which is pretty general in   content. Topics ebb and flow, threads last a while and die.   Participation is essentially dominated by maybe 20 people on each   list. Lots and lots of people try them and find them far too time- consuming to participate in, keep up with.                 The format of more focused discussion groups ("communities") has the   potential of keeping threads alive for longer,going into topics in   more depth with less repetition, getting more participation from a   variety of people. They offer the opportunity to post files, once and   for all, for anyone to search and use (no more posts asking someone or   other to give yet for the umpteenth time a spreadsheet for X). The   archives become that much more easily searchable.                 I, for one, will abandon the listserv quite happily. It will be quite   different, but change isn't always a bad thing. Regards, Fred Sturm fssturm@unm.edu “Art is not a mirror held up to reality, but a hammer with which to   shape it.” Brecht </tt>