<p style="margin-bottom:0in">There has been a lot of discussion and
concern about the new communities on <a href="http://my.ptg.org" target="_blank">my.ptg.org</a>. One factor to
consider is that Pianotech and CAUT are not the entire operation of
PTG, although they may be the most valuable to those of you here.
Allen Gilreath has announced that we will keep the listserv versions
of these lists running for a while. There was some very valid
criticism of the function of <a href="http://my.ptg.org" target="_blank">my.ptg.org</a> for these lists. What you may
not be considering is that this software interfaces with the member
database at <a href="http://www.ptg.org" target="_blank">www.ptg.org</a>. Most forum software doesn't let you do that.
We are able to set up communities for all the committees and
chapters. I really like the idea that as a committee member I
automatically see my committees group and have a place to communicate
with the other members and share documents. There is even the
possibility of creating microsite web sites for certain groups that
may need more. This will allow a new person coming on a committee to
have access to the discussion and documents that have been used by
that committee. That is not so easy to do with an email only format.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom:0in">We will keep the listserv versions
going and we will see if we can find the appropriate forum software
that can work seamlessly with the email version. We have done some
experiments with this in the past and that may be a good solution for
these lists. That doesn't seem to be possible with the <a href="http://my.ptg.org" target="_blank">my.ptg.org</a>
software and email. There is a good reason for this.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom:0in">There was a comment that email
listservs are zero admin. That misses the mark. Email lists are very
prone to spam and we filter up to 40,000 messages a WEEK. The lists
that are contacts for committees and groups are managed but a weekly
administrator. There is a team who trade off weeks monitoring mail
that gets held. The lists are set so that only subscribers to the
list can post, so anything else gets held. Also if you send a message
to a group of people and include one of our lists, that message is
held because “Too Many Recipients” is another mark of spam. The
weekly administrator goes through the held messages and finds the
valid ones and deletes the others. This is an important and necessary
part of running an email list serve.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom:0in"><a href="http://My.ptg.org" target="_blank">My.ptg.org</a> works differently by require
anyone posting to be logged in an authenticated. That is why even
non-member have to set up a profile and log in. This is a different
and equally valid way of limiting spam. This therefore requires
posting to be done from a web interface. This poses the biggest
problem for mobile phones unless they are rather smart. This is why
<a href="http://my.ptg.org" target="_blank">my.ptg.org</a> does not accept posts directly from email.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom:0in">I think one of the reasons people like
the email format, besides the performance issues is that you can then
configure any email client you want however you want it. The web
forum gives you a prescribed view of the data. I have found that by
setting the notifications to TEXT and PDA, I get a more concise view
in email without all the fancy stuff around it. You just have to
remember to respond using the links at the bottom of the email rather
than using the email program's reply.</p><br>-- <br>~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~<br>Ronald Berry Piano Service<br>Indianapolis, IN<br><a href="tel:317-255-8213" target="_blank">317-255-8213</a><br><a href="mailto:ron@berrypiano.com" target="_blank">ron@berrypiano.com</a><br>
<a href="http://www.berrypiano.com" target="_blank">http://www.berrypiano.com</a><br>~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~<br>Ask me about Healthy Chocolate!<br><a href="http://www.berrygoodchocolate.com" target="_blank">http://www.berrygoodchocolate.com</a><br>
<br>Public Key<br><a href="http://www.berrypiano.com/key/Ron_Berry.txt" target="_blank">http://www.berrypiano.com/key/Ron_Berry.txt</a><input type="hidden"><input type="hidden"><div></div><input type="hidden"><input type="hidden"><div>
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