I would like to share a concern which if left unaddressed might affect the
workings and participation in the Native Net. As a subscriber to Native Net
via a commercial service provider I have to pay for the number of Kilo-
characters received and sent. Some of the communications are becoming so
lengthy, that I started to ponder a possible solution. I would recommend
that for articles beyond one or two pages in length a notice be sent that
the article is available by simply requesting the archived file by name.
This way subscribers would have the option to receive or ignore the
article.
If such a device cannot be arranged, I would recommend people keep their
articles to the most significant information only.
Unchecked writing is going to eliminate subscribers like myself due to the
enormous costs attached.
Thank you for your consideration.
Dirk Vermeulen
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Response from NativeNet founder and co-facilitator Gary Trujillo
(gst@gnosys.svle.ma.us):
This subject is one that comes up every once in a while, and which
apparently affects some subscribers more than others. After getting
some comments about some of Bruce Reyburn's long postings on matters
Australian, I did agree to limit future lengthy articles from that
source and others which I control. (I am sharing the moderator task
these days with Mary Kuhner / Jon Yamato in Seattle - they take care
of articles sent to NATCHAT and NATIVE-L via the normal posting ad-
dresses, and I handle articles coming from the APC network (PeaceNet/
EcoNet in the U.S.).)
I don't know of a general solution to this problem, and I'm never
sure when I get a message from the LISTSERV software saying that
someone has signed off one of the lists what her/his reason might
have been, and I'm too busy to conduct "exit interviews." I would,
however, like to receive comments from anyone who has an opinion on
the subject (I'd ask for public discussion, but it would just add
to the load for those who are most sensitive to the problem, which
is something of an irony).
Since I haven't been saying much lately about the LISTSERV facilities,
many people not familiar with the software may not be aware that it
*is* possible to get a copy of any article which has been relayed to
one of the NATIVE-L, NAT-EDU, NAT-LANG, NAT-1492, or soon-to-become-
operational NAT-HLTH mailing lists. One can, therefore, choose not
to subscribe to the list, but just check in periodically by requesting
a list of recent articles. All the information you need should be
contained in an article I wrote a long time ago which you can obtain
by sending a message containing only the text:
get nn-intro archives native-l
to the address "listserv@tamvm1.tamu.edu" (that's the letter "l" in
"native-l" and the numeral "1" in "tamvm1"). The instructions are
given relative to NATIVE-L, so you'll need to make the appropriate
adjustments for the other lists (and note that NAT-EDU is hosted at
INDYCMS (indycms.iupui.edu), rather than at TAMVM1).
I would be particularly interested in hearing from people who would
not mind voicing your opinions on this subject, and I'd like to know
what kinds of articles you most like and those you find to be less
valuable for your own purposes, as I'm sure would my co-moderators
Mary and Jon.