Yahoo, moving, and paranoia.

Folks,

There are many issues at stake when a group such as this utilizes a 'free', yet commerce-based, service to run a mailing list. While Yahoo's TOS (Terms Of Service) might work at this point, and not infringe or endanger anyone in terms of either copyright or license, there is nothing whatsoever to keep that from happening in the future. Amazon changed their privacy policy in mid-stream, and caused not individuals but even publishers (who were privacy-minded) to rethink their participation.

There are already signs that behind-the-scenes actions have caused some changes (such as certain formats of email, possibly .html formatted, not coming though in the digests). How and why Yahoo will configure their mailing list software is entirely up to them -- which means that no one in this group has any control; this goes for their other policies as well.

They could just as easily say "Well, all your email addresses are our property, and as an asset we can sell them as we can any of our property." (Which is exactly what happened at Amazon.com) And then they could sell them to businesses to use for UCE and spam, and your inbox would clog with even more pager and Viagra adverts. Not likely? Hmmm...how about the fact that Yahoo!, long revered as a search engine, is now placing URLs in higher ranking if they have *paid* Yahoo! to do so -- thereby meaning that while your site may have more information, or have been on the web longer, you better pay up or the search engine isn't going to guide readers to your site.

Gone are the days of the free lunch, folks.

As to whether this esteemed list could survive a move, any complaints that it is dead-set where it is are truly short-sighted: the list has had at least two homes, and a few of us are still here from the old Mills College days. We didn't get lost and we didn't have any trouble. Links are made to be changed, because the web ain't carved in stone! I'd hate to see it move, because it's a lot of work, but I for one won't let comfort cloud my judgement.

Final thought? Just bear in mind that your comfy home won't necessarily be that way forever, because *you* don't control it -- someone else does. Which is why I always value email lists that are run by an individual (or individuals) on their own resources that everyone can trust. And having been a member of various lists for nearly a decade, I've seen enough implosions to know that this is **not** paranoia, but simply prudent pragmatism.

OK, back to composing for me. Where the hell is that calculator... :)

Cheers,
Jon

`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`
Real Life: Orchestral Percussionist
Web Life: "Corporeal Meadows" - about Harry Partch
http://www.corporeal.com/

--- In tuning@y..., "Jonathan M. Szanto" <JSZANTO@A...> wrote:

/tuning/topicId_18282.html#18282

> As to whether this esteemed list could survive a move, any
complaints that it is dead-set where it is are truly short-sighted:
the list has had at least two homes, and a few of us are still here
from the old Mills College days. We didn't get lost and we didn't
have
any trouble.

Hello Jon!

Ummm, that's not entirely true. I have tried to find the old Mills
College posts and nobody has them.... Well, some people have this and
that and some, notably Carl Lumma, posted them for awhile and took
them down again, and John Starrett has some and Monz has SOME, and so
on and so on...

But the fact remains that, for all practical purposes, the old Mills
College posts are lost.

_________ ______ _____
Joseph Pehrson

--- In tuning@y..., jpehrson@r... wrote:
> --- In tuning@y..., "Jonathan M. Szanto" <JSZANTO@A...> wrote:
> We didn't get lost and we didn't have any trouble.
>
> Hello Jon!
>
> Ummm, that's not entirely true. I have tried to find the old Mills
> College posts and nobody has them.... Well, some people have this
and
> that and some, notably Carl Lumma, posted them for awhile and took
> them down again, and John Starrett has some and Monz has SOME, and
so
> on and so on...
>
> But the fact remains that, for all practical purposes, the old
Mills
> College posts are lost.

Joe, you didn't read carefully! I said that when the list moved, it
was not a major issue for the members to transfer to the new list. I
didn't say that currently you could find the old Mills list, nor did
I imply it. If, and when, Yahoo feels it is not economically viable
to run newslists, they will most likely terminate them. If that
happens, where would anyone find the archives of the eGroups/Yahoo!
tuning list?

All I am saying is that moving a mailing list is not the end of the
world, nor is it unprecedented. If Yahoo becomes a bad landlord, how
much will this list be willing to put up with?

Read carefully...

Bestest,
Jon
(who hates replying online to these mails with the clunky form-based
interface...)

--- In tuning@y..., JSZANTO@A... wrote:

/tuning/topicId_18282.html#18287

>>
> Joe, you didn't read carefully! I said that when the list moved, it
> was not a major issue for the members to transfer to the new list.
I didn't say that currently you could find the old Mills list, nor
did I imply it.

Actually, what you said was:

>As to whether this esteemed list could survive a move, any
complaints that it is dead-set where it is are truly short-sighted:
the list has had at least two homes, and a few of us are still here
from the old Mills College days. We didn't get lost and we didn't
have any trouble.

There wasn't any "trouble." I consider losing all the old messages
"trouble..."

__________ ______ _____ _
Joseph Pehrson

--- In tuning@y..., JSZANTO@A... wrote:
> If, and when, Yahoo feels it is not economically viable
> to run newslists, they will most likely terminate them. If that
> happens, where would anyone find the archives of the eGroups/Yahoo!
> tuning list?
>

This is why it is extremely prudent to save your digests. I still get
the digest, but mostly come on site to read. My plan would be to make
a CD archive of all that I've received - just in case!

And there's nothing that would prevent us from harvesting the jewels
that are here right now. I reccommend it! Perhaps we shouldn't let
the valuable base of posts get lost, by deliberately and methodically
saving them, and buring CD archives.

Save what is valuable, just in case a "reconstruction" becomes
necessary.

Jacky Ligon

--- In tuning@y..., ligonj@n... wrote:

/tuning/topicId_18282.html#18289

>>
> And there's nothing that would prevent us from harvesting the
jewels that are here right now. I reccommend it! Perhaps we shouldn't
let the valuable base of posts get lost, by deliberately and
methodically saving them, and buring CD archives.
>
> Save what is valuable, just in case a "reconstruction" becomes
> necessary.
>
> Jacky Ligon

This is a great idea, Jacky! Do you think the entire present archive
of Yahoo Groups could fit on one CD-ROM??

I bet if you could manufacture such a thing, list members would
purchase it as a "backup..."

_________ _____ ____ ___
Joseph Pehrson

--- In tuning@y..., jpehrson@r... wrote:
> Actually, what you said was:
>
> >As to whether this esteemed list could survive a move, any

...and etc. Joe, I know what I said (and I mean that with no
rancor!). I was specifically talking about "surviving a move" -- I
agree that not having the Mills College archive is not swell. That
said, if Yahoo says 'buh-bye' to newsgroups, the same thing will
happen! In both scenarios, the list was housed at someone else's good
will, and until/unless someone can provide a server that will not
only host the list but agree to keep the archives online, this
situation will always be the case.

Again, my point was only that moving the list is one thing;
maintaining the past messages as a resource is another.

Again,
Jon