Hello everyone, Tarsha and I had a great day at the archives. She found some fantastic stuff. I read a lot in the reading room, made a few notes. I started transcribing the CSA 7th Cav. Regiment from microfilm. Got about halfway through the Bs. That should take me a number of years huh. Rootsweb is going to start a new system of archiving the mail that goes across the lists on their server. This will be a fantastic new service for new subscribers who want to go back and see what they have missed in messages before they subscribed. The new system will start on Dec. 1. 1997 so please be aware that if you don't want a message that you sent out over the Sumter list to be archived for posterity or whatever, don't send it over the list. Below is a portion of the message that I received from Karen at Rootsweb. ________________ So, what's the new web-based system to be? Evolving, for a start. In the initial phases, for those lists that are participating, the most recent messages will be available via the web in a threaded format. (This is what Marc has been working on.) The older messages (including the old Maiser archives) will be available via a clunky search engine (like that used for ROOTS-L on http://searches.rootsweb.com). (I've been working on this, at least, until I got diverted by all that stuff up there in the first paragraph.) We hope to do two additional things: find a new search engine that will index both the threaded and unthreaded message bases, and as time allows, convert the unthreaded message bases to threaded. There are some open issues here that we haven't worked through yet, so it will be awhile, but that's the target. What about passwords? These have proven much more controversial than I ever expected. I do understand (shoot, I pushed for them) why they are useful and solve a lot of problems. The difficulty is that they seem to introduce at least as many problems as they solve. Some of which hit closer to home than I like (such as whiney letters to [email protected] asking what the password is). Anything that requires more work from the system administration people is almost guaranteed to be a non-starter, and passwords unfortunately fit that criteria. Besides having to deal with people who can't remember passwords or who type them in the wrong case, etc., there's also the problem that to change a password will require manual intervention (we haven't developed the software yet so the listowner could do so automatically), and a password that is stable and never changed isn't much security. If your archived messages need to be secure, a simple password won't be enough to secure them. If your archive messages don't need to be secure, then there's no need for a password. Bottomline: passwords make more work, but add little additional security. So, no passwords, at least not for now, probably never. Can you edit the archives? No, at least, not now. The tools to let you do so aren't available, and the time for someone (me) to do it for you is in too short of supply. Except for cases of egregious copyright violation, death threats, etc, I won't be available to edit your archives for you. I know this means there will be some cruft, subscribe/unsubscribe commands, reposted digests, spam, etc. For most lists, even with the cruft, the signal to noise ratio will still be quite high. What if you have a list member who doesn't want his/her messages included? You have some options. a) You can simply not participate. b) You can tell him/her that you list is participating, and if he/she does not want his/her messages included in the archives to unsubscribe from the list. Target date for the cutover: 1 December 1997. That should provide time for you to touch base with your listmembers (if you so desire), and for us to further shakedown the scripts that will be used to make all this happen. Marc's beta-test will probably be back online before then. ___________________ The SCSumter list will be participating. Please understand that all messages beginning on Dec. 1, 1997 will be archived by Rootsweb. I have been saving messages and I will stop that very, very soon. (My computer will probably sigh with relief.) Remember that this will be for all of our benefit. The messages will be web based and easily searchable. If you lose one that was important, you can find it again. Three cheers for the great folks at Rootsweb. They work on improving their fantastic service everyday. Cindy Ridgeway Parker SCSumter List owner