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Subject: 
Re: CFD: Subgroups for lugnet.org.us & lugnet.trains.org
Newsgroups: 
lugnet.org.us
Date: 
Tue, 23 Nov 1999 02:22:33 GMT
Viewed: 
848 times
  
Todd,

Could we have this yesterday?  :-) ...

In lugnet.admin.general, Todd Lehman writes:
Watching the recent discussions in lugnet.org and lugnet.org.us has been a
lot of fun.  The groups are serving their purpose well as venues for sharing
ideas on formation and nurturing of regional user groups/clubs.  But I think
there is still much more potential within these ng hierarchies.

With eight significant regional clubs/groups now having taken shape --

  BayLUG - [San Francisco] Bay Area LEGO Users Group
  NELUG - New England LEGO Users Group
  GMLUG - Greater Midwest LEGO Users Group
  WAMALUG - Washington Metro Area LEGO Users Group
  WAFOL - Wasatch Area [Utah] Fans of LEGO
  PNLTC - Pacific Northwest LEGO Train Club
  GMLTC - Greater Midwest LEGO Train Club
  NGLTC - Northern Georgia LEGO Train Club

-- and more on the way -- it's a good time to talk about how LUGNET can help
these regional groups prosper even more directly.

Many more on the way for sure, if what I see going on is accurate, including a
group in Italy, The South Eastern US, and a Train club in St. Louis among
others.


I see groups out there struggling to gain new members and invite new people
to join obscure mailing lists; I see groups crossposting to large numbers of
lugnet.loc.us.* state and city groups in order to reach and maintain a wide
audience -- but crossposting on every new thread can be a real chore; and I
see groups struggling even simply to get their name out in the open.

Although I don't think NELUG is struggling to gain members it does have a
crossposting problem in that we cover 6 states.  I think having one place to go
would be great!  I would have a link to it up on the NELUG site the first
opportunity I had.


What's worse, under many current ad hoc setups, if someone wants to
participate in their club's discussions via NNTP news or the web, but their
club only has a mailing list, then they're stuck with that, and the depth of
the discussions often suffer.

So this is an area that LUGNET could help out in a big, big way:  We could
solve all of these issues by taking lugnet.org.us and lugnet.trains.org
(currently plain groups with no subgroups) and making a bunch of parallel
subgroups, one for each major group/club:

While this is true I don't think it would eliminate the need for the NELUG
mailing list entirely.  For the most part this list is used to share
information such as home addresses, phone #'s, and directions to meetings which
are often held at someones home.  Things like this IMHO are not things people
want to post in a public forum.

So while I think this would greatly reduce the need for a mailing list I don't
think it would necessarily eliminate the need entirely.


  lugnet.org.us.baylug
  lugnet.org.us.nelug
  lugnet.org.us.gmlug
  lugnet.org.us.wamalug
  lugnet.org.us.wafol
  lugnet.trains.org.pnltc
  lugnet.trains.org.gmltc
  lugnet.trains.org.ngltc

This arrangement allows for participation in club discussions in ways
custom-tailored to each individual -- via e-mail, digests, NNTP news, web
boards -- even mix & match depending on the time of day or the nature of a
discussion.  If someone wants to read their club's messages as a mailing
list, they can.  If they want to read them on the web, they can.  If they
want the full power of a real newsreader, they can have it.

A second big advantage of this arrangement is that club announcements can be
crossposted directly other LUGNET groups to reach the widest local audience,
with followups directed to a club's .org group for focused discussion.

For example, a typical NELUG message might go simply like this:

  Newsgroups: lugnet.org.us.nelug

and a major NELUG announcement could go out like this:

  Newsgroups: lugnet.loc.us.ma.bos,lugnet.loc.us.ma,lugnet.loc.us.ct,
              lugnet.loc.us.ri,lugnet.loc.us.vt,lugnet.loc.us.nh,
              lugnet.loc.us.me,lugnet.org.us,lugnet.announce
  Followup-To: lugnet.org.us.nelug

I'd like to hear from the various groups/clubs and see what they think about
this.  This would all be very easy to set up given the existing structure,
so please don't by shy.  :)

--Todd

[crossposted widely with followups set to lugnet.org.us]

All very nice I can hardly think of a remote reason to not do this.  One issue
though, as these sort of groups continue to pop-up I can see a bit of a
maintenance issue with the lugnet.org expanding to cover other contries and
local areas.  The other issue would be when do you include a group and what
criteria do you use?

Is a web site a must?
Does the group have to meet at least once?

Just a thought.  I don't really see a problem just some food for thought.

Great idea Todd and thanks,



Eric

The New England LEGO Users Group
http://www.nelug.org/



Message has 3 Replies:
  Re: CFD: Subgroups for lugnet.org.us & lugnet.trains.org
 
(...) which (...) Good point. There might also be some comments that you wouldn't want to say on LUGNET (and therefore in "public"), but you might want to discuss on a private mailing list. Not to keep it from anyone, but just that the venue is less (...) (25 years ago, 23-Nov-99, to lugnet.org.us)
  Re: CFD: Subgroups for lugnet.org.us & lugnet.trains.org
 
(...) I'd say no. GMLTC still doesn't offically have one. It had a soft opening but... and it was in existence for years without having one, without having a name, even. (...) Again, no. GMLUG has never met. But it accomplishes good things in the (...) (25 years ago, 23-Nov-99, to lugnet.org.us)
  Re: CFD: Subgroups for lugnet.org.us & lugnet.trains.org
 
(...) Say, Eric, how do you maintain NELUG's member list? (Add new people's names, keep track of their email addresses, list their websites, etc.) It just occurred to me when I saw this page, (URL) LUGNET could help automate some of those sorts of (...) (25 years ago, 23-Nov-99, to lugnet.org.us)

Message is in Reply To:
  CFD: Subgroups for lugnet.org.us & lugnet.trains.org
 
Watching the recent discussions in lugnet.org and lugnet.org.us has been a lot of fun. The groups are serving their purpose well as venues for sharing ideas on formation and nurturing of regional user groups/clubs. But I think there is still much (...) (25 years ago, 23-Nov-99, to lugnet.admin.general, lugnet.general, lugnet.trains.org, lugnet.org, lugnet.org.us, lugnet.loc.us.ca.sf, lugnet.loc.us.ma.bos, lugnet.loc.us.mn.msp, lugnet.loc.us.dc, lugnet.loc.us.ut.slc, lugnet.loc.us.wa, lugnet.loc.us.ga)

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