Mike, I think that this is an excellent idea.
I'm not sure what Mike Devour has against archives, but I think he must have some unspoken reluctance to allow it since the list continues without archives over this long time. Perhaps he wishes to avoid the situation where new people ask about CS and everyone says, "read the archives"... I think that a some people have put a lot of thought into what they present and it is a shame that it disappears into the digital void. An archive, at least of more relevant CS posts, would also allow some refining of the information so we could develop some really good reference material. Other topics, particularly those reported by Brooks Bradley, are significant and I don't know of anywhere else that they are recorded. It would be good to have this collection as well. Perhaps other catagories could be developed. Of course, if it was all archived it could be searched in the usual way. I have a CD of Wayne Fugitt's silver list archive up to a year ago or so (can't remember the exact date) in Eudora format. I'm sure others have saved posts for a long time as well. Not sure how to get these into an archive though. Dan On Thu, Jan 28, 2010 at 3:09 PM, Mike Monett <[email protected]> wrote: > Hi Mike, > > I don't know if you got my email on archiving the silverlist. Maybe > my new email service still has some kinks in it, so I'll try posting > this. > > Archives are extremely valuable. They permit newcomers to browse > them and search for information, and to learn much more than they > could without them. That's how I got started, and the information I > got from reading Tai-Pan and the others was invaluable. > > Newcomers often ask the same questions over and over again. People > get tired of giving the same answers, and a lot of good information > never gets passed along. For example, David has some very eloquent > arguments regarding Argyria, but he simply has refrained from > wasting his time in the recent discussions on this topic. I'm sure > others may feel the same. However, if the posts were archived, it > would be easy to collect the best discussions and simply point to > them in a post. > > Having archives means keeeping a lot of good information that now > gets lost. Links to important information, favorite products, > descriptions of procedures, results of experiments, and other > valuable information could be kept safe for everyone to use. > > Browsing the archives often prompts questions that can lead to > discovery of new information. This is much less likely when the > posts are read once and possible discarded or perhaps saved > somewhere on your hard disk. But if you do save them, how do you > search them efficiently? > > I hope this gives some good reasong why the silverlist should be > archived. But the suggestion I made to use Google Groups turns out > to be a bad idea. Google deliberately design the software to make it > impossible to do what needs to be done. In prticular, they ony allow > searches in web pages, not in files. This means a new page would > have to be created for each post, and the contents pasted into the > page. That would be too much work for anyone. > > But I found another solution. There is a free mail list archiver > that provides all the features we need. It indexes the posts by date > or thread, and has excellent search features, much better than the > old eskimo search that only allowed one word and it had to be longer > than three characters. > > Here is an example of a date index: > > Messages by Date > > <http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/maillist.html> > > and an example of a threaded index: > > <http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/index.html> > > The service had been available since 1998, and is supported by > advertising. The equipment is excellent, and they do backups often. > > They allow you to download the archives so you can keep your own > local storage. > > Their uptime is excellent, and they have uptime records going back > many years. The operation is highly professional and is the best of > all the similar operations I was able to find. > > They strip the headers and email address from the post so email > harvesters cannot grab the email address and spam everyone on the > list. They do provide a button at the bottom of the post so people > can contact the poster. This exposes the email address, but I guess > it is not much different than subscribing to the silverlist when all > the addresses are exposed to anyone who receives the posts. > > If you look at a typical post, you can see they stripped the headers > and provide the search function on each page: > > <http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/msg07053.html> > > The best part comes last. You don't have to jump through hoops to > start archiving the messages. Just subscribe them as you would for > any person, and they do the rest. Here's the blurb on their home > page: > ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ > Archive your mailing list > > Looking for an easy way to turn your mailing list into a searchable > archive? Just add [email protected] as a member to your > mailing list as described in the how-to-guide. > > http://www.mail-archive.com/ > ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ > I hope this reaches you, and you will consider giving them a try. > > Best Regards, > > Mike M. > > > -- > The Silver List is a moderated forum for discussing Colloidal Silver. > > Instructions for unsubscribing are posted at: http://silverlist.org > > To post, address your message to: [email protected] > > Address Off-Topic messages to: [email protected] > > The Silver List and Off Topic List archives are currently down... > > List maintainer: Mike Devour <[email protected]> > > >
