[CI-Announce] The contact improv mailing lists - clarification and progress

[Ken Manheimer]

Hi, all!  I'm about to head out to the richmond jam, and then on to a
week long workshop at earthdance - luxury, thrills, ooh, ahh!-).  But
before i go, i've finally arrived at an arrangement for the contact
improv maillists, and i have some new info and some clarification.

I think many people were confused when they received password
reminders for the ci@python.org maillist.  That happened because the
regional philly-ci and dc-ci maillists were subscribed to the ci list,
and you all are subscribed to the regional lists.  I've refined the
mailing list system so special lists, which only have other lists as
members, don't send their administrative messages to the member lists,
so that shouldn't happen again.

But do note that you should use ci-announce@python.org (no longer
ci@python.org) for announcements of "global" interest - and send stuff 
only of local interest directly to your regional list.

So what about this new contact-improv-catchall@makelist.com?  Well,
its for people with no regional list of their own.  But, even more
interesting to me, it's at a place where people can create lists of
their own.  I'm hoping that people who don't have a regional list are
tempted to start one at makelist.com.  This way, the network of lists
can grow without me (or anyone else) being a bottlenec, having to
intervene for each one.  (Visit http://makelist.com for info about
creating a list - and if you do create regional ci list, subscribe it
to the ci-announce list at
http://www.python.org/mailman/listinfo/ci-announce .)

The overall idea for all these ci lists is to have
ci-annouce@python.org for the community as a connected whole, while
keeping discussions and information particular to a particular
regional group within that group.  That way, the global group isn't
flooded with all the particulars of all the regions ("julie's having a
drum boogie saturday, at her house"), but stuff that would interest
everyone ("julie's starting a ci school in chi, wyoming") can get to
everyone.

I hope this makes sense - but i'm sure there'll be some further
clarification to do when i return, and hopefully we'll eventually see
growing of our online community.  In the meanwhile,

I'm outta here!-)

Take care,

Ken Manheimer
klm@python.org