Re: What the future holds for ASA

[Frank Kurz <tech@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On 10/04/2011 10:32 AM, SRyckman wrote:
> As many of the long term ASA members know, newsgroups have many pluses
> and minuses.  On the plus side they are very simple and quite easy to
> access, if you know how to access.  On the negatives they are seen as
> a dying region of the Internet and most Internet newbies don't even
> know what a newsgroup is, let alone how to access it.   There is also
> no formal moderation in the "alt" newsgroups which makes keeping
> things under control difficult.
>
> A brief history of this group:
>
> April 9th, 1989 - Proposal for the Security Conference was posted on
> RelayNet, a system of interconnected bulletin board systems. At this
> time the conference was only available on Lakes Region BBS in Zion IL
> and my own Off The Wall - On The Line bulletin boards in Wadsworth IL.
> Both were PCBoard BBS's with two phone lines each.
>
> October 1989 - The Security Conference went live. It had been delayed
> due to a maximum capacity of conferences on RelayNet that had to wait
> for a software upgrade to be rolled out.
>
> March 24th, 1996 - The proposal message for the alt.security.alarms
> newsgroup was posted. All messages were cross posted with RelayNet so
> users on either side could see all messages.
>
> October 1996 - The RelayNet system experienced issues with the cross-
> posting due to an update in their software. The cross posting never
> worked again and the RelayNet conference was abandoned in favor of the
> newsgroup as attendance was higher there.
>
> April 9th, 2011 - 22 years after the group was originally formed a new
> era begins as a FaceBook page and forum.   The intention is that these
> mediums will allow new users access to the expertise of the group.
> The FaceBook page isn't designed to serve as a destination but a
> launch point into the forum and newsgroup.
>
> http://www.facebook.com/pages/AltSecurityAlarms/201879703167854?sk=info
>
> Those who wish to access the forum directly can do so here:
>
> http://asa.nevets.net
>
> Obviously, this newsgroup will continue to exist and be used, but the
> intention is to bring more participation into the group and expand it
> into a more widely used collection of resources to reach more people.
>
> Happy 22nd birthday to the group.
>
> Enjoy....


I don't see why your participation in this group can't yield the same
results.  ASA has (over the years) garnered a large group of readers.
The past is the past.  The group has seen some real improvement over the
last two years.  I don't think a private forum will be of any particular
benefit.  Just my opinion.


--
Frank Kurz
www.firetechs.net