[Coco] Re: UseNet *"Bit.Listserv.CoCo"* NewsGroup elimination

[John E. Malmberg]

Stephen H. Fischer wrote:
> 
> John E. Malmberg wrote:
> 
>>That would be the folks at: http://newsadmin.com/bit/bit.html.
> 
> Twelve minutes by car for me to visit in person.
> 
>>As near as I can tell, no one wants to be the bad guy.  But there may be
>>  automatic processes involved that can kick in with out prior notice.
>  
> Why not stop any automatic processes and get an agreement to continue the
> B.L.CoCo newsgroup.

No reason.  Just needs someone to step up and try to do it.  Generally 
newsgroups and mailing lists have one or more active designated contacts 
or effective owners (not sure what is the correct term).  It sounds like 
you are volunteering to be one for the bit.listserv.coco.

Many newsgroups run apparently totally on auto-pilot.

> As the B.L.CoCo list was carried by Princeton long after having any
> connection, I believe the part about not wanting to be the bad guy.
> 
> Is there any good in holding the list untill it is automatically terminated?
> That is still a bad position.

I do not know if they will automatically terminate the list.  They may 
hold it forever until a Princeton employee or student/student group 
agrees to sponsor it.  The deadlock is that Princeton is not likely to 
do anything to look for a sponsor on their own.

> Being good would be helping the continuation of the B.L.CoCo newsgroup.
> Doing nothing when an automatic kill process is running is not good.

Nothing in the publicly posted documents indicates that a list would be 
suspended and not terminated.  Not really sure what the difference is.

> You stated that you were not the person that caused the list to be held.

Correct.  I have had no communications with the Princeton.edu folks 
about the mailing list.

> The contacts that you have had with People at Princeton have NOT been
> communicated in a timely manner to interested persons like me on the CoCo
> list.

You presume that I have had multiple contacts with Princeton and what 
contact that I had directly was related to the coco mailing list.  It 
was not.

Please do not look for conspiracies where there are none.

> You also have a great deal of knowledge about the "Bit" groups and their
> rules. Rules that have come over to me as "Doom and Gloom" as quoted.

The knowledge that I have is the result of about an hour's work with 
http://www.google.com to supplement the small amount of knowledge I had 
on usenet newsgroups.

This search was triggered partly by some of your earlier postings.

> Those rules May have gone out of effect and do not apply today.

Only newsadmin.com knows.  From a google search of mailing lists that 
are gated to the bit.listserv.* hierarchy, there is precedence for lists 
that do not appear to be hosted by bitnet members.

> I still cannot tell if the best plan is no plan and let what will be will
> be.

No one seems to know that.

> Lots of quoting rules and no actions to save the UseNet
> *"Bit.Listserv.CoCo"* NewsGroup. Is that what is being offered?

What is being offered is pointing out where to make the contacts about 
the operation of the newsgroup.  newsadmin.com is apparently the only 
ones controlling the bit.listserv.coco.

I do not know the what the results of such contacts would be.  The 
people hosting the mailing lists seem to be the ones that have the least 
flexibilty on what they can do.

It appears that newsadmin.com may do what ever they want.

They may agree to let the bit.listserv.coco continue.

They may agree to let you be the contact / "owner", which would give you 
the right to cancel any spam that shows up.

They may request that Princeton agree first to the transfer of control 
from the suspended COCO list to you.

http://www.google.com may find a similar list with a current sponsor, 
and that sponsor may also agree to sponsor the coco list.  It may 
involve moving the COCO list to another bitserv host.

I have not got the time to pursue this.

Now I have no objections if you succeed in keeping bit.listserv.coco 
running, or even if you can find another sponsor for the COCO list.
And I have no objections if you become the designated contact for 
bit.listserv.coco issues.

And of course, I do not represent anyone else on this mailing list or forum.

-John
wb8tyw at qsl.net
Personal Opinion Only