Re: This mail group

["Mark McCall" <mark@xxxxxxx>]

I agree with all your points Kieran.  I think we've talked over the last
weeks and months about the community that this list has become.  People
like
the OT posts to  (me included) and the general feeling that you can get an
answer or help with almost ANYTHING here :)

I just though that the 200 odd messages over Saturday night would put off
many new comers that have just joined the list in search of HA discussion
and help. It's no biggy for me but I think we should try and moderate some
of the stuff just a tad.

Thanks

M.

----- Original Message -----
From: "Broadfoot, Kieran J" <Kieran.Broadfoot@xxxxxxx>
To: <ukha_d@xxxxxxx>
Sent: Monday, July 02, 2001 2:45 PM
Subject: [ukha_d] This mail group


>
> Everyone,
>
> Ive kept pretty quiet all weekend because it was nice t  revert t 
lurker
> mode t  watch how this weekends activities(!) turned out.  Maybe Mark
can
> answer my question... how many people actually left this group this
weekend?
> Maybe it was on account of Phils and PaulGs somewhat obscure drunken
> revelry, maybe it was another one of those annoying posts about
projects.
> Whatever it was I somehow doubt many people left.
>
> I think I know why as well... this group isnt just about home
automation,
> its about community which is why most of us involved in systems
> administration do what we do, i.e building communication channels.  We
may
> not always appreciate what people say and hell sometimes, just
sometimes,
> someone might say something you would spend a lifetime opposing but
somehow
> theres something that goes beyond all that. Its about community
spirit.
Who
> else here feels they belong to a group of friends rather than a slew
of
> anonymous faces?
>
> So yeah I am all getting a bit carried away but my point is that this
group
> works well and has some great people on it who sometimes talk
rubbish..
lets
> not lose that by splintering the group into irc chatrooms, usenet
groups,
> msn conferences etc.  If you splinter the group, people not on the
> conferences wont feel a part of it and that i feel would be a real
shame.
>
> To prove my point heres a small snippet from an inspired post by a
usenet
> manager from stanford uni.  Ive got rid of most of the rant but he
does
talk
> about all the good things about what makes this type of forum kinda
fun.
>
> thanks
> kieran
>
> ---8<---
> From: Russ Allbery <rra@xxxxxxx>
> Newsgroups: net.subculture.usenet
> Subject: A Rant
> Date: 31 Mar 1998 05:03:00 -0800
>
> There are people here who understand how it felt to be a teenaged kid
wh
> wandered into a newsgroup about comics because he collected comics at
the
> time and it was something interesting t  talk about.  Wh  had the
> experience of walking into a culture and a community in the process,
with
> its own legends and history and elder figures and mythology, where the
> Reverend Scowling Jim Cowling flaming Holbrook was a spectator sport,
> where one heard stories of the legends like Chuq von Rospach and
Jayembee
> wh  had been posting there *just* before you got there but you weren't
> quite there soon enough t  see them in all their glory, where no one
> really took any of this all that seriously except for the friendships
> formed in the process.  Wh , a year or tw  later when he'd long since
> given up comic collecting and lost interest in comics altogether found
he
> was still hanging out with the same people in the same places, because
the
> thing that Usenet did, the *important* thing that Usenet did that put
> everything else t  shame, was that it provided a way for all of the
cool
> people in the world t  actually meet each other.
>
> Sure, I've been involved in Usenet politics for years now, involved in
> newsgroup creation, and I enjoy that sort of thing.  If I didn't, I
> wouldn't be doing it.  But I've walked through the countryside of
Maine in
> the snow and seen branches bent t  the ground under the weight of it
> because of Usenet, I've been in a room with fifty people screaming the
> chorus of "March of Cambreadth" at a Heather Alexander
concert in Seattle
> because of Usenet, I've written some of the best damn stuff I've ever
> written in my life because of Usenet, I *started* writing because of
> Usenet, I understand my life and my purpose and my center because of
> Usenet, and you know 80% of what Usenet has given me has fuck all to
do
> with computers and everything to do with people.  Because none of that
was
> in a post.  I didn't read any of that in a newsgroup.  And yet it all
came
> out of posts, and the people behind them, and the interaction with
them,
> and the conversations that came later, and the plane trips across the
> country to meet people I otherwise never would have known existed.
>
> That's what this is all about.  That's why I do what I do.
>
> People.
>
> Do you know what it's like t  see something that you've put your heart
and
> soul into creating grow and flourish and *become* one of those
> communities?  What it feels like t  give back to someone, someone just
> discovering the Internet, those same feelings of wonder and awe and
warmth
> and community and friendship that you found?  To receive, not the
welcome
> random bit of thanks here and there, but the far deeper and more
wonderful
> knowledge that you've built and maintained something that people are
> *using* and using to do things and see things and think things that
they
> otherwise would never be able to do or would have no outlet for?
>
> Do you know what it's like t  have a friend of yours randomly on a
whim
> decide something in a newsgroup you created is interesting and
engaging
> enough t  post to Usenet for the first time?  And then to experience
the
> horrible, sinking knowledge that with that post he's likely to get his
> mailbox flooded with spam?  Or the raw fear that he'll then never post
> again, scared away, when this place that has given you so much could
give
> that t  him as well, and that he could give the same to other people? 
And
> that, damn it all, he's one of the cool people in this world, and you
> don't know what these groups are all for, in the end, but if they're
for
> anything at all, they should be for people like him?
> ---8<---
>
> ---
> Kieran J. Broadfoot
> Equities Unix Administration.
> Goldman Sachs, London.
> Phone: 0207 774 5946
> Dect: 0207 552 6003
> Fax: 0207 774 0550
>
>
>
> ____________________________________
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> http://www.automatedhome.co.uk
> ____________________________________
>
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>




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