The wombat's other project
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Below are the 16 most recent journal entries recorded in
Stumpers' LiveJournal:
| Tuesday, March 27th, 2007 | 3:41 pm
[bibliotrope]
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Are listservs obsolete?
Over on ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/community.gif) libraries, ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) guenifhar thinks e-mail lists are old fashioned and annoying and should be replaced by blogs, LJs, and/or RSS feeds. This is the meat of her post: I am about 2/3 of the way through my MLS, and as part of various classes have been required to subscribe to a number of listservs. There are tons of them out there: publib, colllib, libref, medlib, lawlib... on and on ad infinitum. I am currently on only two of these, and I regularly open my email to find 50+ messages to sift through. And what happens is I end up deleting a lot because there's just so darn many of them and I'm trying to find the "real" email among the listserv posts...
Now, I am not implying that a subject discussion forum itself is a bad idea, or that the discussions aren't valuable - I think they are, very much so. But after just a few posts in communities like these, the listserv seems to be a community-facilitating technology that is well, just so last century. Wouldn't it be easier for listserv moderators to set up an LJ community, or other blogspace, where subscribers could actually follow full threads and not be inundated by avalanches of emails? I would think this might actually facilitate better discussion too... I think she may have bit off more than she can chew with too many lists (she says her prof is requiring it but I'm not sure how many she's actually subscribing to). So I'm asking for discussion of this topic, purely theoretical: would blogs or LJ be better for the sorts of things Project Wombat does, or that Stumpers used to? Or maybe just some of it. (John Dyson's menus come to mind.) Are e-mail lists too old-fashioned a format for the newer generation of Internet users, such as current library-school students? Current Mood:  curious | | Monday, July 10th, 2006 | 8:52 pm
[dsgood] |
Take a look at the little_details community. It's for writers (mostly fan-fic, I gather) who need information in order to write particular stories. | | Sunday, March 12th, 2006 | 4:16 am
[bibliotrope]
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Dilbert and PW?
Saturday's Dilbert strip mentions a "Project Wombat":  Is Scott Adams lurking on the list? Did he hear about it somewhere and thought it was a cool name? Or is it pure coincidence? I think I'd be happier if it weren't the Pointy-Haired Boss bringing up the subject! | | Monday, February 6th, 2006 | 1:18 am
[bibliotrope]
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| | Monday, January 23rd, 2006 | 3:53 am
[bibliotrope]
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New List!
The new list is here! It's called "Project Wombat", and comes in three flavors depending on how much time and patience you might have for some of the off-topic stuff. I have signed up for the "filtered" version (just questions and answers) on my work e-mail address and the "classic" version at home. I will be posting a questionnaire in the next few days about the future of this LJ community, whether to keep it open or not. I haven't yet worked on the exact wording. | | Friday, January 20th, 2006 | 11:51 am
[bibliotrope]
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Almost there...
The latest news from John Franklin is that today should be the day: One... Last... Step...
The server is configured. I have edited the Welcome messages. I have sent out test messages, and verified that things work reasonably well. But the server is having a problem with mail forwarding (it’s swallowing all messages sent to certain addresses) and the archives are broken. (Doubly so for one of the lists; the others just aren’t working, but one of them isn’t even recording messages.) I have dispatched a request to our contact and will now stagger off to bed for a few hours. I promise to get back up at noon—our contact is in Alaska and I’m in Chicago, so that’s awfully early, but maybe we’ll be lucky—and start watching for replies.
I do have everything ready to go, and the actual mail distribution works, but I’m on 4 hours of sleep and don’t trust my own judgement under the circumstances. So I’m holding off until I have a reply about the problems. Or until I’ve slept on it and still think going ahead would be okay.
Bear with me for just a few more hours. Even if I get no reply, I’m going to go ahead at 3 PM, so that all continental United Statesians can subscribe before going home for the weekend.
Busy, busy.
REMINDER (partly to myself): This is 3 p.m. Chicago (Central) time John's referring to, so it would be 4 p.m. in the Eastern Time Zone, 2 Mountain, 1 Pacific. You other time zones are on your own; I can only keep so many straight at one time. | | Thursday, January 19th, 2006 | 5:59 pm
[bibliotrope]
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The new list may emerge from the volcanic ash sooner than I thought
The latest update from John Franklin: The server is all configured, I have the password, the lists have been created, and I am working on setting up the proper settings and doing some preliminary testing! Another update soon, I hope.
Here’s another update, as promised: this is taking longer than I thought. (The fact that I am pulling an all-nighter to do this may have something to do with it.) Still, I expect to be done by tonight, if not sooner.
[An hour later]: well, I’ve run into a bug: when I attempt to alter the Welcome message or other files, I get an error. Even if I just submit the form without making any changes. As far as I can tell, it’s this bug, so if anyone knows how to fix/work around it, let me know. I am going to send a message off to the server administrator about it, with the text which should go in the Welcome Message, and go to bed. (It’s getting really late. Or, more accurately, early.) With luck, this will be something trivial and when I get back tomorrow afternoon, I can just finish things up. Until then... So there are still a few technical difficulties, but it looks like the new list will open soon. (I do know the new list's name -- one of the new list board/moderators told me -- but feel honor-bound not to tell yet.) | | Tuesday, January 17th, 2006 | 6:13 pm
[bibliotrope]
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Open thread part deux
Since it's apparently going to be awhile until the new list gets going -- before the dust volcanic ash settles! -- I'm starting a new open thread. Anyone who is not a member of LiveJournal can post a question or comment to this message. I would appreciate it if you signed your name, especially if you were a member of Stumpers-that-was. Anyone who is a member of LiveJournal can post a message and start a new thread anytime. And LJ is easy to join: just fill in the blanks here. Basic membership is free. | 5:26 pm
[bibliotrope]
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List postponed on account of volcano.
If it isn't one thing, it's something else. The latest news from John Franklin: (...Then the guy who is doing the software installation had a couple of busy days and couldn’t get around to finishing up the configuration, and then he went on a business trip to Seattle. That wouldn’t be a problem, except that he lives in Alaska and had his return flight cancelled by the eruption of the Augustine volcano. The server is up and running, it now even has Mailman installed—which it didn’t before—but the lists aren’t running yet.) (Let’s hope this is all worth the wait!) You can see a map of the location of the volcano here. It's about 175 miles from Anchorage, so it must be affecting a large percentage of Alaska's population. And it just erupted again, "firing a plume of volcanic ash 8 1/2 miles into the air"!  | | Tuesday, January 10th, 2006 | 4:09 pm
[dsaklad]
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| | Friday, January 6th, 2006 | 10:24 am
[bibliotrope]
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Update on list status
John Franklin has been posting updates on the quest to get the new list up. The latest news is that it should be next week: Although I should, perhaps, have learned by now not to try to set dates when dealing with other people’s deadlines, we have enough offers [of new hosting sites] that I would imagine we can get something set up and in operation by Wednesday the 11th. Another twist: The new list may have a new name. Stumpers, the difficult reference question discussion list, is no longer being hosted by Dominican. The decision to drop Stumpers was made near the end of 2005. Dominican is being very civil about dropping the list, and is willing to give us a certain amount of help with getting it up and running elsewhere. They are willing to at least consider passing any rights they may have had in the archives to the public domain. In return they would either like a disclaimer about the list no longer being hosted by Dominican (and them having no responsibility, etc.) posted repeatedly and prominently, or for the list to change names. I would rather change the name, myself, particularly since that would maintain a good relationship with Dominican and would probably be enough to get them to forward visitors looking for the list to its new location. and No new name has been selected yet. Either we will stick with Stumpers and risk alienating Dominican, or use a new name that doesn’t contain it at all. This domain name does not expire until August, so if/when a new name is chosen this site will still give information about it for a while. Of course, this LJ community will continue with this name for awhile since there's a fee involved with changing LJ user names. But we will have links on the user-info and recent-entries pages to the new list whatever it ends up being called. | | Wednesday, January 4th, 2006 | 8:55 am
[dsaklad]
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| | Friday, December 30th, 2005 | 4:35 pm
[bibliotrope]
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More Stumpers news
John Franklin has posted an update at www.stumpers.org about the status of the list. It may be a few more days into the New Year than previously hoped before the list gets running again, and there are some questions about the archives (such as who has legal right to them, and if December's has been saved). But the list should be back next week or so, it looks like. | | Wednesday, December 28th, 2005 | 2:55 pm
[bibliotrope]
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Open Thread
If anyone wants to ask a reference question (which is Stumpers' main raison d'etre), you can post it in the comments to this post if you're not a LiveJournal member. LiveJournal members are welcome to join the community and post if they have something to say or ask. However, if anyone wants to discuss the list's future, or just dis Dominican for letting us go so abruptly -- I'm not happy at all about that! -- let's use the comments sections of my previous posts. | 2:38 pm
[bibliotrope]
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I just wanted to let everyone know that I have been reminded (via a phone call from another Stumpers member who is not on LJ) that John Franklin is definitely planning to have a new home for the Stumpers mailing list by the beginning of next year, which is only a few days away. He seems to have a backup plan in place, and just needs a few days to enact it. It all happening over the holidays isn't making it easier, I gather. I don't know if I'll keep this community open (or only as a backup, if that's possible on LJ) after that. I've never been a moderator before either. This is all new to me and is being done on the fly as a stopgap, just in case Stumpers folk -- especially those not on the Stumpers Talk list -- need a place to congregate or share questions or just gossip between now and then. I think I have it set up so that anyone can post, at least if you're a member of LiveJournal already. If you're not a LiveJournal member but just visiting, I'm going to start an open thread where you can post a message as a comment. If you're from the list, I'd appreciate it if you sign your name to the post. | 1:10 pm
[bibliotrope]
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This is the message about the list's problems
[Apologies to anyone who doesn't want to get Stumpers mail any more. I am sending this message to everyone who was subscribed to Stumpers just before the holiday started, to make sure I don't miss any academics who unsubscribed for the winter break. You will receive one more message after this, and that will be all.] Well, it finally happened. Those of you who have been on the list for more than a few months know that Dominican has been threatening to cut off their hosting of Stumpers for some time now. The IT department has repeatedly unplugged the server without warning, and the support from within the GSLIS has been ambivalent. Well, as of December 23rd, or thereabouts, Dominican decided to pull the plug for good. Merry Christmas, Wombats! Do not, however, despair! (Assuming, that is, that you are the sort to despair because an e-mail discussion list stops functioning.) By purest coincidence, I received an offer to host Stumpers somewhere else just before all this started. We will be accepting it unless something better comes along in the next, say, 24 hours. (So if anyone wants to put in a bid, hurry.) I will be updating the previously-unofficial-but-now-official website at http://www.stumpers.org/to give details as things become clear. A longer explanation of the current situation will be available there as soon as I have enough time (and sleep) to expand what I have already written. I expect to get something up and running by January 1, even if it is only temporary. Once we have a new venue, I will send out one more message to everyone who received this one so that everyone can resubscribe. (I will not be adding any addresses to the new service. Don't bother writing to me to (a) tell me to subscribe you or (b) tell me to stop sending you messages. The new list will have a very nice, easy-to-use web interface.) In the meantime, I wish everyone a happy new year. ---------- John Franklin Last Moderator of Stumpers at Dominican |
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