Maybe I'm just old and tired this year but -- it was easy enough to keep track of "all" the lists back when we had Roots-L and Alt-Gen. It got a bit tougher when we got the Soc.Gen hierarchy, but still, DO-able. Then the GenWeb layer. Then the explosion: I quit even pretending when it hit 1000. And /finding/ one from the RW Lists page? Oh, please! A year or two back (when I wasn't so stressed out and tired from it) I went looking for one of my own lists there, and after two days, I gave up. It was faster to drag an old computer out of the basement, hook it up to a monitor and search its HD to find the info I needed. I'm told there's a list on Yahoo that serves my specific neighborhood; no one I know is ON it, because they can't find it either. fooey. ;) Cheryl JLA wrote: > I've heard of it. ;--) > > I thought that part of an admin's duty was to recommend to confused > posters where it would be proper to post certain types of messages. > > I also thought that cross posting was a no-no? > > I took the time to look through all of what lists were available so I > was familiar with what was available even if I was not a subscriber? > > On Fri, Feb 15, 2013 at 8:53 PM, W David Samuelsen<dsam52@sampubco.com> wrote: >> Gen-Events? news to me! list admin of 20 and never heard of it and I >> have been around since the beginning of the lists. >> >> How many subscribe to that list- Bet you 99 percent do not subscribe to >> that unheard of list. >> >> I prefer such event be posted to many differrent relevant lists than >> locked to an obscure list many never heard of. >> >> David Samuelsen

On 2/16/2013 9:26 AM, singhals wrote: [snip] > And /finding/ one from the RW Lists page? Oh, please! A > year or two back (when I wasn't so stressed out and tired > from it) I went looking for one of my own lists there, and > after two days, I gave up. It was faster to drag an old > computer out of the basement, hook it up to a monitor and > search its HD to find the info I needed. > > I'm told there's a list on Yahoo that serves my specific > neighborhood; no one I know is ON it, because they can't > find it either. > > fooey. ;) > > Cheryl Cheryl: I think that is a fair criticism of the "special interest" lists. But I have no trouble whatever in finding a surname list, or a USA county list. For me those are the heart of genealogy. Yes, I admin a couple of the obscure ones; VT-CEMETERIES and VT-CIVIL-WAR, plus one software support list, SECONDSITE. The Vt. cemeteries list had 49 messages in 2012, the Vt. CW list hasn't had a post since Feb. 2011. I used to promote them, here and there, but don't do that much any more -- no effect from the effort, that I could tell. Not surprising, given that there was no interest in taking over the two Vt. lists other than from me, and the developer of Second Site has moved his e-mail based support to a Google group. The biggest problem I have had in the last few years is that the signal to noise ratio coming to my lists from the boards got so low that I ended up closing my last few open gateways. Similar disappointment accompanied my efforts to find the occasional valuable post from non-subscribers. I no longer check those regularly. Yet RootsWeb mailing lists remain some of the most important resources available to me. The Vermont location lists, a few surnames, and the VERY active software list TMG (which has had 569 messages so far this year) ... Darrell

I find it rather ironic that the quantity of posts from people moaning about these so called "mass postings" will very soon eclipse the amount of posts being complained about If the person posting about this jamboree was not posting prices etc, would it not have been more sensible to let them get on with it ? There is so little traffic on the lists these days that I can't really see a problem If I got multiple mails to multiple lists they can easily be deleted in one go and would not bother me in the slightest Sledge hammer to crack a nut springs to mind Nivard Ovington in Cornwall (UK)