Re: AGA List Moderator

["Karen Randall" <krandall@rdrcpa.biz>]

That's Awesome, Dennis!

I had no idea we were getting such a knowledgeable moderator!<g>

Of course, I had no contact with (or understanding of!!!) the technical
aspects of CIS, but I have to say that from a user's perspective, it was
much easier to follow threads and find what you wanted than the BB's I
looked at in the early days.

Now, of course, it's easy for even us "toaster users" to archive stuff on
our own computers, so we are not so dependent on forum software to help us
out!

In any case, we are honored to have someone so experienced keeping an eye on
the list.  Hopefully we will NOT have to deal with any of the poor behavior
seen on some other lists!  BTW, can you tell me your last name?  I was
telling my husband about you, and he wanted to know.  He is a long-time
"bleeding edge" computer user and PC World reader. (our first home computer
was an Osborne... I can't even tell you how long ago that was!)  Besides,
I'll need to know your whole name to properly introduce you as the new list
moderator!

Karen


Karen A. Randall
krandall@rdrcpa.biz
----- Original Message -----
From: "dilvish" <dilvish@pacbell.net>
To: "Karen Randall" <krandall@rdrcpa.biz>
Sent: Wednesday, May 07, 2003 3:26 AM
Subject: Re: AGA List Moderator


> heh.. so I was the only suck... er, um, volunteer to step forward, eh?
<g>
> Ok, well, let's give it a shot.  I've been moderating forums since 1988
when
> we fired up our state-of-the-art 2400/4800 baud modems and logged on to
our
> bbs networks - fidonet, ilink, etc. I ran telecommunications, consulting
> (business), Blues.. a couple of others.  We prided ourselves on being free
> of the flamefests dominating arpanet and the newsgroups.  And our approach
> was identical to what you have described.
>
> In 1993 I joined PC World as Managing Editor, eventually becoming Director
> of Interactive Services.  I created all their forums on CIS, Prodigy, AOL.
> Even MSN for a while. At one point we had over 200 paid or volunteer
sysops
> moderating and tending our forums. We must have had a hundred forums on
CIS
> alone. 2+ million visitors a day on all platforms.  Ah, those were the
days.
> Our old bbs networks were far more stable than CIS' forums. More than once
> I'd be wakened by a phone call at some ungodly hour by a sysop telling me
> this or that had crashed. You know that CIS was written in COBOL or
FORTRAN?
> The kludges those poor programmers had to devise..
>
> Then the web came along. Just a small news story early in 1993. I remember
a
> few of us sitting around trying out html. Actual web pages made by
ordinary
> people started popping up. Took me 2 years to convince management that the
> future was on the web.
>
> Then in 1999 I went to CMP Media to run Data Communications, which had
just
> folded the print version.  I was brought in to create a web-based magazine
> from its remnants. From that we created Commweb, which is still going.  Of
> course by this time we were all about conferences, lists and newsletters.
> Managing live forums was just too costly. Newsletters and conferences were
> just as effective but were also that most cherished of all creatures:
> Profitable. We'd only use the lists as follow-up or hype for the next
event.
> One of the joys of working with all professionals is that they are very
> comfortable talking amongst themselves. No need to have moderators or
anyone
> minding the list.
>
> So, just to close,  I'll moderate the list for you if you like. I think
it's
> very funny that all of this started because of me. Now I feel obligated to
> keep it going! <g>  I agree with you about the APD.  I have some issues of
> my own with some of the attitudes there.  Ok, let me go think up some
> topics.
>
> Regards,
>
> Dennis
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Karen Randall" <krandall@rdrcpa.biz>
> To: "dilvish" <dilvish@pacbell.net>
> Cc: "AGA Steering Committee" <aga-sc@thekrib.com>
> Sent: Tuesday, May 06, 2003 5:54 PM
> Subject: Re: AGA List Moderator
>
>
> > Hi Dennis,
> >
> > Actually, you are the first person to respond!
> >
> > I was a section leader on Compuserve's Fishnet for years before the APD
> came
> > along.  In those days, the plant section alone often saw 50-70 messages
a
> > day!  As section leaders, while we were certainly welcome to participate
> in
> > any discussion we wanted to, we were NOT expected to answer everyone's
> > questions.  We certainly tried to welcome new people.  Besides that we
> kept
> > an eye out for questions that didn't get answered by anyone else.  If we
> > knew someone who was likely to be able to answer the question, we'd
> forward
> > it to that person.  If not, we'd just answer with something like, "Very
> good
> > question, unfortunately, I don't know the answer.  Hopefully someone
else
> > will pipe up who has some information."  We did NOT have to go tracking
> down
> > answers unless it was something we were personally interested in. (of
> course
> > it was a lot harder to find the answers to many of these questions in
the
> > early days!<g>)  And again, if there was a management question, we'd
> forward
> > that to the appropriate person.
> >
> > I think the most important thing for the members' list is to keep things
> > rolling and keep enthusiasm up.  Maybe seed the list with occasional
> > discussions about TAG article, or things that at are NOT standard APD
> > fodder.  And probably most important, I think we should make sure that
> > newbies feel comfortable and valued... something that isn't always the
> case
> > on the APD.
> >
> > If you're willing to take the job on, I think it would be wonderful.  It
> was
> > your fresh enthusiasm that sort of got us off the ground here, it only
> seems
> > right that you should be the first members list moderator!
> >
> > Karen
>
>

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