[FM Discuss] I totally agree about the E-mail.(another country heard from:)

[DAVID PASSELL]

Hello all: I have been following (is lurking the term?) the various E-mails
on different subjects. (I accumulated 43 over a couple of days). Back in
March I made a suggestion about the desireability of setting up a blogspot
where different subjects could be explored ONCE and found later by subject.
I completely agree with Vito. Here is a copy of the E-mail i sent, preceded
by Adam's comment:



Subject:     [FM Discuss] Sorting it all out
    From:     dwp <davidrex at northlink.com>
    Date:     March 15, 2010 2:42:32 PM MST
    To:     discuss at lists.flossmanuals.net
    Reply-To:     discuss at lists.flossmanuals.net

hey!

post this to the list for discussion!

:)

adam

OK

Hello Adam and all: I am a retired technical writer. Although i made an
early contribution through the Floss site, lately i have been noticing the
ever increasing variety of subjects that are addressed in the mailing list.
Those who are interested in any subject need to sort out those E-mails that
address their interest, then respond to them. Currently there is a mixture
of E-mails covering, in no particular order:

•  Credit for authorship

•  Translation: into Spanish, Hindi, Russian, etc.

•  Booki vs Floss vs other composing tools: That particularly aspect is  a
confusion factor because I feel it can leave contributors uncertain as to
which "system" they should be directing their contributions. Also unknown
are whether authors conributing to one are seen or known to those
contributing to another.

•  Sugar

•  Links or referrals

•  code sprint

•  Professional technical writers contributing to the open source
documentation process; Getting credit and/or some payment; Good resume
material.

And many more, not necessarily connected to each other. Note: The thread
feature in E-mail kind of helps but it is still a mish-mash.

Additonally, depending on the E-mail setting by the sender, the E-mails may
or may not contain text of E-mails to which they are replying, and so on
back. Wheels within Wheels within Wheels:)

I would suggest that all the comments now contained in those E-mails might
be better submitted into a newsletter-type blog. For an example.take a look
at the one created the Prescott Macintosh User's Group

http://pmugnews.blogspot.com/

If  you examine the contents of this blog, there is the main body of
submissions in chronological order. You will find that it contains

Labels:  These are assigned when a submission is received. The number of
similar items is in (). Click on one of those and you get all relevant
entries.

    * accessories (1)
    * adapter cables (1)
    * Address Book (1)
    * anti-virus (2)
    * Apple Care (1)
    * Apple news (18)
    * Atom (1)
    * audio (1)
    * AudioBooks at Library (1)
    * backup (3)
    * Basics (5)
    .
    .
    .

And their are the archives: Click on an archive and you see past entries.

Blog Archive

    * ▼  2010 (90)
          o ▼  March (19)
                + How to Format a Hard Drive
                + Copy & Paste Program
                + Quick-loading Internet Home Page
                + Comic Strip Humor
                + About These Widgets
        .
        .
        .

There's also a search box at the top of the blog.  A person can search for a
particular term or name by typing it in that box.  Blogspot brings up all
the entries that contain that term.

A user can set up an E-mail RSS feed and new entries are immediately
displayed in the RSS list. The RSS list provides the first few lines of
every message ever sent. Click on more and you get to the main page (via a
browser; i use Firefox).

The blog is set up through  "blogger" by  google.

Below is the window that comes up when you click "Create Blog" from any
blogspot blog.

 Create account   Name blog   Choose template

Create a Google Account

This process will create a Google account that you can use on other Google
services. If you already have a Google account perhaps from Gmail, Google
Groups, or Orkut, please sign in first
Email address
(must already exist)


When you finish the initial establishing of an account, you then can define
the format of the blog itself. If you continue on with the instructions
there will be guidance.

One person, the editor, (Adam Hyde or a designee; perhaps there could be
several) is responsible for maintaining the blog. E-mail submissions by
contributors can then be assigned appropriate labels and posted. I would
suggest that the person who makes the blog assign one or more other persons
to be the backup, since you enter the blog by a password. Then copy or back
up the blog so there's another copy of the whole thing somewhere else.


Regards: David Passell










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