Minutes/2021-06-04

From Usenet Big-8 Management Board

Present: TM, JE, RL

  • Publicity
    • TM: Our Reddit AMA seems to have resulted in a spike in views (ca. 90) and engagements to our Facebook page posts
    • JE: Our Reddit AMA was a success, considering Usenet is a niche topic that few people nowadays have heard of outside of a means for piracy. The AMA currently has 225 upvotes with 89% of votes upvoted and 84 total comments.
    • JE: We need a statement about what to put into the Open Collective newsletter. We can contact OC directly through their slack. Alanna Irving can help with the newsletter.
      • TM to review old newsletters and draft a submission
  • Infrastructure
    • TM: Asked Alexis Rosen of Panix about his offer of help and got a reply indicating that he could provide a test account, and mentioning that our continued use of procmail and ispell would likely prove to be headaches for him and for us, respectively.
      • TM to send a note of thanks and indicate that we will get back to him on the test account if/when we need it
  • Administration
    • The meeting noted articles from Adam Kerman on news.groups (s7k3tl$v6c$1@dont-email.me View article on Google Groups, s92qct$68t$1@dont-email.me View article on Google Groups) with some insightful comments and suggestions on terminology and new group proposal procedures (particularly as they relate to "boilerplate" text and moderator succession plans).
    • E-mail from Paul Schleck re Group Mentors: TM to reply regarding membership
    • E-mail from Paul Schleck re common arguments against moderated newsgroups: TM to reply
  • Miscellaneous
    • JE: Emailed Ronda Hauben with a fuller introduction into what we are doing and asked her if she would be interested in speaking with us about her work on Netizens.
    • JE raised the suggestion of holding a one-day conference on Usenet and it was agreed that he would contact prospective speakers/attendees to gauge interest in the idea
    • TM gave advance apologies for the 25 June and 2 July meetings
    • JE gave advance apologies for the 2 and 9 July meetings
    • It was agreed to cancel the 25 June and 2 July meetings; and for TM and RL to hold the 9 July meeting only if there are sufficient (or sufficiently urgent) agenda items to discuss