Thanks, Brooks and others, for the suggestions -- I've included my
responses below...
To everyone on the list -- Please send me your comments, suggestions, and
problems anytime.
In my comments below are some things which, if done by everyone, would
help me a lot. These are marked with an arrow --> like this.
Finally, I would welcome volunteers with ideas, skills and energy who
would undertake projects to help the list. Please email me directly with
ideas.
Richard Karash ("Rick") | <http://world.std.com/~rkarash>
Innovation Associates, Inc. | email: rkarash@world.std.com
3 Speen St, Framingham MA 01701 | Host for Learning-Org Mailing List
(508) 879-8301 and fax 626-2205 | <http://world.std.com/~lo>
On Thu, 15 Jun 1995 BHBoston@aol.com wrote:
> This list is clearly one of the best lists around - superb contributions
> and brilliantly organized and supervised. The tie-in between the list and
> the WWW archives is exceptionally well done.
Thank you! As to the Web tie-in, that's 99% due to the terrific software
by Kevin Hughes, hypermail. The key to all of this, for a volunteer effort
like Learning-Org, is finding ways to do things that don't involve much
operating labor. My company, Innovation Associates, "sponsors"
Learning-Org, but that's limited to paying the modest $ costs for our
internet provider.
> So it is with some hesitancy
> that I make some observations and recommendations. I could have submitted
> these directly to Richard Karash, but the last issue I have raised here re
> the dangers of the continued success of this list is of concern to all, so
> I presume Rick may want feedback from all.
>
> Specific suggestions:
>
> 1. Web Search Capability. It would be quite an improvement if the search
> for author or subject could be extended so that one could search beyond
> just a single month.
Right now, if you're using the web, message are grouped by month. There
are no linkages from one month's messages to another. You can easily
search each of the last few months if looking for something, but you
can't search across all months.
I'd like to see this as well, but don't know how to accomplish it. Anyone
have any suggestions?
I could easily provide a list of subjects, dates, authors, and LO#'s if
someone would organize this. Or, if someone would create a web site that
indexes the LO Web site, I could easily link to it. (I cannot run CGI
scripts here at World.)
> 2. Web/Email subject listing. It would be helpful if IA could adopt say
> a dozen or so single-word standard subject categories (Each of the 5
> disciplines would be good for starters), so that whatever subject the
> submitter offered would be preceded by an IA-assigned single-word subject
> header. If this were inserted when the messages were placed in the Web
> archive, one could more easily do historical searches.
I don't believe this is practical. At one point, I tried to combine
together messages that were about the same subject (back before we had
the digest). I did it for only two days; it was much harder than I
thought. That experience makes me think that it would be hard for people
sending messages to put them into one of a few set categories.
I also worry that it would dampen the conversation.
NOTE --> The single thing that would help the most is if you all would be
very careful with the "Subject:" line on any message you send to
learning-org. Keep the *exact* same text if you are continuing a thread.
Make a distinct change if you are branching to something new. Keep the
"Subject:" line short, catchy, and precise. People will use it to decide
whether to read your message.
NOTE --> If replying to a message, leave the LO## in the "Subject:" line.
(My software creates the "Replying to LO### --" line in the message body.)
> 3. Digest Titles. Instead of spelling out the words learning-org-digest
> (that already appears in From box) it would be good if this phrase
> were either shortened or eliminated and replaced the LO nos. that are
> contained in a particular digest. This would facilitate searching prior
> digests in search of a particular LO.
First, let me mention that the operation of the list (including digests)
is via majordomo, a creation of Brent Chapman. This is one of the many
great pieces of technical wizzardry that power the internet, offered free
(or essentially free) by the authors, for our benefit.
This is not now possible. The digests are assembled automatically by
majordomo. I haven't seen other lists with nubmered messages, so I doubt
that majordomo's author is working on this.
> 4. Digest Summary. In the digest summary it would be helpful to include
> the author, in addition to the subject.
I agree, and I thing it would be generally useful; I will pass this on as
a suggestion.
> 5. List Breakup to Sub-lists? It seems to me the continued success and
> growth of this list is inevitable. However, success could be the downfall
> if the contributions become so many and varied that the reader has to wade
> through too much to get to something of interest. So in addition to my
> suggestion above of having say a dozen or so subjects, it might be well to
> be thinking of breaking this list up into several broad categories (fewer
> than 12 - say 3 to 6) and have the participants be able to pick which
> list(s) they want to sign up for. I question whether it would be within
> IA's administrative resource limits to offer this, but it might be
> offered in the context of setting up unmoderated lists if resources become
> an issue.
> To accomplish this will take considerable thought, and perhaps Rick and
> the participants would prefer to keep this one, free-wheeling list. But
> if there is a desire to explore dividing this list up into several
> sublists, to which participants could subscribe to any or all, I suggest
> the next step would be to begin by asking all participants what their top
> three subjects would be.
>
> Then we could try to narrow down this list into a few broad categories.
>
> My three are:
>
> 1. Learning re Outside Strategic Forces 2. Shared Vision 3. Team
> Learning
This is a difficult question. Yes, many facilities like learning-org have
matured by breaking into finer units. I cannot myself operate a series of
subsidiary lists, and my intention is to keep Learning-org going with
it's current scope.
I would gladly cooperate with anyone who would like to create more closely
focused discussion lists, and I can share what I've learned. (Bob Eberlein
operates a list on system-dynamics.)
Several people have sent me notes saying they did not want to see
Learning-Org broken up into a set of smaller pieces.
I'm quite worried about the limits to growth of the list, but I'll leave
that for another message.