<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN"> <html> <head> <meta content="text/html; charset=ISO-8859-1" http-equiv="Content-Type"> </head> <body bgcolor="#ffffff" text="#000000"> On Fri, 11 Mar 2011 15:53:48 -0800 "David Love" <a class="moz-txt-link-rfc2396E" href="mailto:davidlovepianos@comcast.net"><davidlovepianos@comcast.net></a>  wrote: <blockquote cite="mid:mailman.732.1299888070.4635.pianotech@ptg.org" type="cite"> I still do consider the list an important part of the PTG and not a group who has simply developed an inflated sense of self importance.  Comments were made about teachers at conventions not necessarily being participants in the list but when I look at Westpac1, just off the top of my head, Del Fandrich, Dale Erwin, Mike Morvan, Horace Greeley, Nick Gravagne, and Israel Stein (no less) are all frequent participants on the list.  At national conventions there are many others.  Obviously some teachers don’t participate but many do and I think the list serves as an important barometer for what people are talking about and are interested in.  I think it is likely that the Designer’s Showcase would not have happened were it not for the discussions on soundboard design that had taken place there over those preceding years.  So I do hope that people stay with it and make the necessary adjustments.  I would also be pleased to see some acknowledgment by those who have disparaged the group based on the practices of a few that the list has real value.  For me personally it is probably the most important service that the PTG offers.  </blockquote> David, As the new system becomes more familiar to the users, all the functions of the old lists will be duplicated (as well as some of the problems). The bottom line is that those lists have gotten too big for the PTG's resources to manage. Did you read how much work has to be put into keeping the spam off the lists while letting legitimate messages through? I suppose the filters could be turned off, and then you will see how much crap the moderators/monitors have to weed through in order to find the legitimate messages that have been caught by the filters either because the authors did something stupid or some if the words used are on the watch list for spam. I suspect all the available volunteers have been burned through... Alternately, they could leave the filters on and not do the monitoring - and then you will never know whether your message will or will not be caught by the filters. Unless, of course, you are volunteering to do some of that monitoring work - i wonder how long you will last... I suppose we could hire someone to do it - but that would require a dues hike, our staff is working at its limit right now... In any case, those lists will shrink as people move to the new system and abandon them, and will not be able to fulfill those functions any more. In the final analysis, they were unsustainable in their bloated form - and you will see that ways will be found to do everything that they did, and a lot more. Just sit back and let it happen. Israel Stein <blockquote cite="mid:mailman.732.1299888070.4635.pianotech@ptg.org" type="cite"> <o:p></o:p> <o:p> </o:p> <div> David Love<o:p></o:p> <a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="http://www.davidlovepianos.com">www.davidlovepianos.com</a> </div> </blockquote> </body> </html>