RE: ADMIN: An Open Letter to the TECHWR-L Community (Time for the Big Sleep?)

["Greg Thompson" <gthompson -at- conformia -dot- com>]

Donna:

It is obvious that many people on this list don't like STC. As I have
stated before, I don't have a huge investment in either camp when to
comes to this argument. Each individuals experience with STC is going to
color their views of STC as an organization, much like the various blind
men who come up with different descriptions of an elephant when they are
asked to touch different parts of one.

Donna, my view of this proverbial elephant is limited to my
participation on the Lone Writers SIG list, which has been, contrary to
your views of STC SIG Lists, a very active and very valuable resource.
There hasn't been an issue I have posted to Lone Writers where I haven't
gotten a satisfactory answer. Often I post the same questions to both
lists and get quality responses from both.

When I previously suggested that some might think about joining STC to
use the Lone Writers forum or to have TECHWR-L managed by STC and have
STC not require TECHWR-L members to be a STC member to use TECHWR-L, I
got a lot of virulent responses. I am cool with that and I respect these
individuals' descriptions of and experiences with this virtual elephant
to be radically different from my own. 

However, what Lone Writers has demonstrated to me is that additional
forums like TECHWR-L can exist and provide quality information to those
who want it.

Many seem to want TECHWR-L to have a post Ray's management to be done
the same way the Ray's managed it. This is fine with me as I concur with
many who have posted on this topic that they have done a great job and
this list is a great resource. However, there seems to be some unique
problems in replicating Ray's "way" (like the "HP way"? ..:) lol) in the
future.

1. We need to find individuals who are have the "right disposition" in
dealing with the often virulent discussions.
2. We need to find individuals who are willing to do this as a labor of
love (and have the time to do so) with all the investment of time and
lack of profit that this phrase generates.
3. We need to find individuals who are willing to dish out some cash to
pay for the Ray's investment.
4. We need to find individuals who are willing to keep the same
structure of how information is presented and stored and keep the
commercial component to a minimum (some have objected to forming a non
profit corporation because of potential personality clashes etc etc.)

I think that unless all 4 criteria are met, many are going to leave the
TECHWR-L.  From the discussions we have had on this subject, many of you
have presented strong arguments as to why it will be difficult to
implement all 4 criteria (perhaps there are even more that I missed?). I
can see from the Rays comment's that they are reluctant to hand TECHWR-L
over to someone or some entity that wont treat it as a labor of love and
that they have even suggested putting TECHWR-L to the proverbial "big
sleep" (any Raymond Chandler fans out there? :) lol) 

If the Ray's requirements cannot be met and current TECHWR-L members
won't be happy under a reconstituted but radically different TECHWR-L,
then I say let the "big sleep" happen. While not encouraging those not
inclined to do so to join STC in order to become members of Lone
Writers, what I want others to see is that there are other groups out
there that can fill the void TECHWR-L once filled. Look at the many
brilliant and creative suggestions many have made to replace TECHWR-L. A
lot of these, if they came to fruition, could provide a viable
alternative to TECHWR-L (but not with the same format); I have no doubt
that if TECHWR-L did disappear, some of them would.

Be it in the virtual or in the literal world, we all gotta go some time
:)

G. Greg T.





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