From: "Keith F. Lynch" <kfl at KeithLynch.net> To: WSFA members <WSFAlist at KeithLynch.net> Subject: [WSFA] Re: This list Date: Sun, 8 Mar 2020 15:10:28 -0400 (EDT) Stan Field <e.c.field at gmail.com> wrote: > I would like to know the GoogleGroups address so I can join. The list address is ewsfa at googlegroups.com. I think you can subscribe by sending an email to ewsfa+subscribe at googlegroups.com. If that doesn't work, write to samlubell at dmarc-verizon.net and ask him to subscribe you. Either way, you'll get an email with a code in it that you have to mail back, to make sure that a prankster isn't signing you up without your permission. All emails are from "ewsfa+" followed by gibberish, so if you whitelist, be sure to either whitelist that prefix or whitelist the whole of at googlegroups.com. > I would have rather they gone to MeWe since Google is just as bad, > if not worse, than Yahoo as far as privacy is concerned. I don't know everyone's reason for avoiding Yahoo, but my reasons were: * They asked permission to send spam. If you didn't affirmatively answer no, they assumed permission. Later, they switched every no to yes, and spammed everyone. * They outed pre-democracy subscribers in China to the Communist government so the subscribers could be jailed. Google has never done anything like that, as far as I know. I've been subscribed to the new list for four months, and have gotten no spam on or related to it. If you don't have a Google account -- I've never had one -- all that Google will know about you is your name, email address, that you're subscribed to the list, and what you post to the list. But note that Google already knows all of that about you from *this* list, since this list's archives are on the Web, where they were found and indexed by Google and other search engines. Ted White <twhite8 at cox.net> wrote: > The majority of the lists I'm on moved from Yahoo Groups to > Groups.io. Apparently no one in WSFA knew about Groups.io. Why didn't you suggest it to them? And if you like this list, why was that your first post here in nearly two years? Ron Kean <ronkean at juno.com> wrote: > No objection. 18 years is a long run for an email list. The RISKS digest is 34. This list is old enough to vote, but in a few months that list will be old enough to run for president. (And it would be a far better president than Trump, Biden, or Sanders.) The MSGGROUP list would be 44, except that it's long defunct. Much of the research and etiquette on how to use email originated there. (Unfortunately, the population of the Internet later increased so quickly that lots of people made up horrible email habits, and refused to listen to people who knew how to do it right.) Tamar Lindsay <dicconf at dmarc-yahoo.com> wrote: > Although I have a google groups membership, I never use it. > I would miss the convenience of this list, but I suppose I could adapt. It's just as convenient. The only downsides I've noticed are: * The archives are visible only to those with a Google account. But since you have one, that's not an issue for you. * The emails are rather bloated. This is partly because each email has a header of between 100 and 200 lines and a 6-line trailer, partly because most posters quote all of the email they're replying to, including any emails that that email quotes and including a copy of Google's 6-line trailer for each nested quoted email, and partly because many of the posters post in HTML, more than doubling the size of everything, with the second copy full of ampersands, angle brackets, and nonsense words such as "MsoNormal." I've seen as many as eight copies of the 6-line trailer in a single post, each one more mangled than the last. As for the HTML and the overquoting, I've nagged people about those bad habits on this list, but I'm not going to do so on the ewsfa list. If anyone else wants to nag them, feel free. I'll pay attention to pleas to keep this list running only if they are accompanied by posts. I see little point in keeping an unused list running. The other list is much more active. If you're there, you know that WSFA has changed their Third Friday meeting location, that Aly Parsons, Michele Rosenberg, and Michael Resnick died, and that scans of lots of old WSFA Journals have been placed online. My current idea is to shut this list down as soon as a whole calendar month goes by with no posts from anyone but me.