I apologize for the length of this post, but I thought it might be simpler
to forward rather than rewriting to send to the lists. It explains the
upcoming changes to the archiving of our lists.
Resent-Date: Wed, 12 Nov 1997 20:45:32 -0800 (PST)
From: karen(a)rootsweb.com
Subject: Announcment: RootsWeb Message Archives, Changes Coming
To: listowners-announce(a)rootsweb.com
Date: Wed, 12 Nov 1997 19:44:54 -0800 (PST)
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Organization: RootsWeb Genealogical Data Cooperative
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Sorry to have been virtually absent in the discussion of archiving
messages. Life has been pretty much on hold for me for weeks, first
getting ready to go to Chile to visit the nephew, then going to Chile,
then coming back with food poisoning, then spending one whole day at
the office before coming down with the flu. At RAND, it's probably
now "Karen who? Does she still work here?"
Marc and Brian and I have talked (using that ancient technology,
the telephone), and here's the current scoop on message archives for
RootsWeb mailing lists. It won't all take effect for a week or two,
so to the extent you want to survey the readers of your respective
mailing lists for their opinions, you'll have time.
1. Once the new (web-based) system is on line, we will be turning off the
old (e-mail based) system of accessing archives. Experience has shown
that it is hard on the system (uses too many CPU cycles on large lists),
and hard on the user (difficult to understand, tricky syntax) and hard
on the system administrators (I'm going to =scream= the next time some
listowner has a list member write to me to get personalized instruction
on how to search the archives via e-mail, because the listowner doesn't
want to be bothered.) Once the new tools are in place, this old horse
is going to be put out to pasture. (I know that not everyone has web
access -- you might want to have a few volunteers on each list who will
do lookups for those without web access.)
2. So, what's the new web-based system to be? Evolving, for a start.
In the initial phases, for those lists that are participating, the
most recent messages will be available via the web in a threaded
format. (This is what Marc has been working on.) The older messages
(including the old Maiser archives) will be available via a clunky
search engine (like that used for ROOTS-L on
http://searches.rootsweb.com).
(I've been working on this, at least, until I got diverted by all that
stuff up there in the first paragraph.) We hope to do two additional
things: find a new search engine that will index both the threaded and
unthreaded message bases, and as time allows, convert the unthreaded
message bases to threaded. There are some open issues here that we
haven't worked through yet, so it will be awhile, but that's the target.
3. What about passwords? These have proven much more controversial
than I ever expected. I do understand (shoot, I pushed for them) why
they are useful and solve a lot of problems. The difficulty is that
they seem to introduce at least as many problems as they solve. Some
of which hit closer to home than I like (such as whiney letters to
webspinner(a)rootsweb.com asking what the password is). Anything that
requires more work from the system administration people is almost
guaranteed to be a non-starter, and passwords unfortunately fit that
criteria. Besides having to deal with people who can't remember passwords
or who type them in the wrong case, etc., there's also the problem
that to change a password will require manual intervention (we haven't
developed the software yet so the listowner could do so automatically),
and a password that is stable and never changed isn't much security.
If your archived messages need to be secure, a simple password won't
be enough to secure them. If your archive messages don't need to be
secure, then there's no need for a password. Bottomline: passwords
make more work, but add little additional security. So, no passwords, at
least not for now, probably never.
4. Can you edit the archives? No, at least, not now. The tools
to let you do so aren't available, and the time for someone (me) to
do it for you is in too short of supply. Except for cases of
egregious copyright violation, death threats, etc, I won't be
available to edit your archives for you. I know this means there
will be some cruft, subscribe/unsubscribe commands, reposted digests,
spam, etc. For most lists, even with the cruft, the signal to noise
ratio will still be quite high.
5. Does your list have to participate? No. If you don't want your
list included, go to the utility page for your mailing list, follow
the button at the bottom labelled "edit selected files" and add to your
reject list the address "archiver(a)lists.rootsweb.com". (If you go to
your utility page, and you don't have a button like that at the
bottom, then and only then, write to listmaster(a)rootsweb.com and ask
that the address archiver(a)lists.rootsweb.com be added to the reject
list for your mailing list. Be sure to say what mailing list.) Note
that, if your list doesn't participate in the web-based archives,
there will be no access to your archives unless you make alternative
arrangements (for instance, through your ISP) to provide such. If you
decide you do want to set up your own message archive elsewhere, we
will zip up your old archives here (including the old messages from
Maiser, if any) and put them somewhere so you can FTP them. Not all
lists want archives (hi, Wally!): if that describes your list, just
opt out of the web-based archives, and voila!, you're set.
6. What if you have a single hothead who doesn't want his/her messages
included? You have some options. a) You can simply not participate.
b) You can tell him/her tough, and go ahead and participate. c) You can
ask that we not include your material from before the cutover (see
below), and tell your hothead that anything he/she posts after the
cutover will be included. (For the third case, send a letter to
listmaster(a)rootsweb.com, etc. etc.)
Target date for the cutover: 1 December 1997. That should provide time
for you to touch base with your listmembers (if you so desire), and
for us to further shakedown the scripts that will be used to make
all this happen. Marc's beta-test will probably be back online before
then.
Karen