Hi Yusuf, SM,
On 01/11/2016 05:19 PM, Yusuf Satar wrote:
>
> Spreading knowledge and keeping people informed of the state of the
> internet – websites, technology, connectivity…, is itself working for
> the advancement of internet in Mauritius. Even if readers are not
> contributing to ‘the cause’, they are the part of the purpose the
> mailing list should strive to achieve, i.e. education and awareness.
>
Mauritius Internet Users does not run a blog/site to spread knowledge.
The mailing list is more a communication tool that allows, as I said,
people working for the advancement of internet in Mauritius keep each
other informed.
E.g if I am writing to some organization and copying the mailing list,
the other members can see the course of action. The people replying do
not necessarily need to reply to the mailing list. Other members can
then trigger a relevant discussion on the list.
Do I send an email to spread knowledge? I do not think so. However,
non-subscribers seeking to stay informed about internet "activities" in
Mauritius may improve their knowledge by reading the archives.
I'd say education & awareness is a different topic. We won't know the
level of understanding of our subscribers regarding certain subjects if
they do not communicate, participate or ask questions. How can we
educate & create awareness if we do not know the level? I still stress
on the participation of members.
>
> Unfortunately the mailing list archive is far from user friendly. The
> link to the archive itself cannot be found anywhere. In the age of web
> applications and facebook users, I wish to make a strong appeal not to
> increase the difficulty level of the mailing list usage or perception
> thereof for the general public.
I agree that the mailing list archive does not comprise modern features.
It however allows people to sort the messages by thread, author and
date; which is quite helpful. The message titles can be searched using
the search feature of any browser. There needs to be a quest for
knowledge, then one shall see options.
The public archive did not exist. I requested that and there was some
resistance to that also. We might have a wish for endless features but
we resort to what we can at the moment.
>
> Also, email has the advantage of being ‘push’ rather than ‘pull’,
> whereas the archives requires that the user visits the site and selects
> a starting point to start browsing. Also worth mentioning is the absence
> of a built-in search mechanism (of course a search engine can be used,
> but this is not of common knowlege).
See my answer above for the search feature. A mailing list archive
functions on a simple mechanism. From a sysadmin's point of view, I'd
say you need a email recipient that dumps the email content (including
header info) in a database. The same can then be used to build an
archive. Everything requires some time & effort. I'd say at the moment
we do not have that much of resource to start building one & S.
Moonesamy resorted to an existing solution that is available. Should you
have an alternative to propose, I'll be glad to hear & help (within my
capacity).
>
> A suggestion in this regard would be availability of rss feeds, but then
> again I remain sceptical with respect of this technology – although
> having the mailing list in xml format would render it very malleable and
> presentable in various formats.
>
Yes, RSS solves your "push" and "pull" problem but I doubt it can be
easily integrated in the current solution. The mailing list is a bunch
of static content (HTML) generated by incoming emails. Could you correct
me SM?
>
> It would be interesting to know more about the approval process.
>
I will let SM shed some light on this.
>
> Moderation and restricted membership are separate issues.
>
Yes. I agree.
>
> I am sure technically it would not be an issue to get active
> subscribers. The problem would be to determine the most active users
> from the sporadic ones.
>
There are two obstacles to overcome the hurdle in getting more active users.
1. to get people give their time freely for community activities
2. to get people write emails
There might be other issues but broadly I think of the above.
>
> Semantics my dear Ish.
> - We are a group of 500 people with 5 active participants.
> - We are a group of 5 people with a readership of 495 people
> - We are a group of 5 people (if we cleansed the 495 non participants)
>
I can quantify 5 active people based on their participation but I cannot
quantify readership of 495 non-participants because I have no means to
confirm whether they read the emails.
> It would be interesting to know if the need to quantify the most active
> users greater than the purpose the MIU seeks to fulfill with regards to
> awareness and knowledge (see above).
>
Sincerely, I'd say yes we'll need to quantify that activity. There are
other means for awareness & knowledge, a website is an example.
Technically speaking the archive is a website, without modern features.
I might be repeating the same thing that I answered above. I guess you
know my answer here.
Regards,
--
Ish Sookun
I drink coffee & manage Linux servers
for lexpress.mu.
Received on Mon Jan 11 2016 - 18:49:34 PST