Nothing is free. This was actually raised as an issue at SSA last
year. The Library of Congress is busy spending taxpayers dollars
putting images up on Flickr. LC's argument was that Flickr is "free."
The simple reality is that Flickr is used to attract eyeballs and data
that it can monitize. So, in essence the taxpayers are subsidizing
Flikr and Yahoo via The Library of Congress budget. I find it amazing
when users of The Internet think that commercial sites are "free-"
since when? I am not interested in sharing anything with Yahoo or
Google.
There has been some good
discussion regarding moving the list. I appreciate the kind offers
from various folks to host the list, but I would like to make a case
and propose a simple model for moving the list to either Yahoo Groups
or Google Groups. I think either of these would work very well for the
list and perhaps from what Loris has said, it sounds like Google Groups
might have the edge in terms of features.
1. Google & Yahoo
are both free.
2. Both offer a lot of
features$BMQ(Jerhaps Google has the edge here. Many people on the
alt photo list have been asking for more features for years.
3. Large servers like
Yahoo & Google are more reliable and not dependent on one
individual with one computer and one host$BMU(Joo many links in the
chain that can break.
4. The list could be
started immediately on either.
5. You can have
multiple "list minders"
6. You have easy
security options that can eliminate spam.
7. You can temporarily
deactivate a member if they are sending "out of office auto responses"
when on vacation with their secretary.
8. You can remove
someone from the list if they misbehave.
9. You can make it a
private list so that:
a: you can show
nudes without being categorized as an "adult list"
b: a private
list lets you screen out spammers
10. You can temporarily deactivate a member if their computer gets
hacked or gets a virus that causes them to send spam to the list.
11. You can have more than one list owner for redundancy.
12. I think the half-life of a group started on Yahoo or Google is
likely to be greater than one started on a private server.
I would suggest that we ask for 3 volunteers to start up the group as
"list owners" and post the information for joining on this list so
everyone can migrate over smoothly.
By having three members, you could have an agreement that it requires
approval of two of the "list owners" to remove someone from the list.
Most of you remember situations in the past where this had to be done,
though it has been a rare.
If one of the three list minders wishes to retire or becomes unable to
participate, that person can easily be replaced.
By the way, how are we
going to come to a consensus regarding what to do? I think there are
500-600 people subscribing to this list and only a handful have made
suggestions.