I'm just curious what the general thoughts are of those on the list. I'd appreciate some input... you all can reply onlist or privately to me if you like. Has the subject matter on the list moved away from Astronomy too much for your liking? Do you not read most of the emails from the list anymore? Would you prefer to snuff out the political/evolutionary/etc content, and just read about Astronomy? Thanks! Cynthia
Tough questions. Yes, the subject matter has moved away from astronomy more than I would like- I find that I detest confrontation and competition more and more as I age, BUT- the issue is of overriding importance. If non-scientific, religious fundamentalist views are allowed a toehold in the science classroom, even astronomy as we practice it- private citizens with large telescopes & sophisticated technology, freely discussing ideas- can disappear. So even though it gets my shorts in a knot, generates stomach acid and triggers fight reflexes, talking about peripheral subjects (at best) is probably a good idea. That said, I would have nothing against a seperate list dedicated to fighting the ID agenda & accompanying political baggage, and moving this list back toward astronomy and space science exclusively. It probably would get a lot less traffic. I can't recall ever seeing a subject generate more posts than ID debate- and I haven't been on the list as long as some folks. I guess I'm saying that I'm OK with it either way. Thanks again, and as always, Cynthia, for providing a forum for discussion and image posting, subject aside. Well-done. --- Cynthia Blue <leviblue@utahdogs.com> wrote:
Has the subject matter on the list moved away from Astronomy too much for your liking? Do you not read most of the emails from the list anymore? Would you prefer to snuff out the political/evolutionary/etc content, and just read about Astronomy?
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Rich's blog idea is good. Or if people want a separate list and have this one devoted to strictly astronomy and space science, I would be happy to set up a list off of the mail server Ken and I own. It's just a basic listserver but this crowd is pretty well behaved in my opinion so that should suffice. I don't know how many lists Cynthia is limited to on Xmission or if she's even interested in being on/moderating a general science discussion list or not, so the offer is open - I'd be happy to setup a list off of warnerit.com if you'd like. Chuck Hards <chuckhards@yahoo.com> wrote: That said, I would have nothing against a seperate list dedicated to fighting the ID agenda & accompanying political baggage, and moving this list back toward astronomy and space science exclusively. It probably would get a lot less traffic. I can't recall ever seeing a subject generate more posts than ID debate- and I haven't been on the list as long as some folks. I guess I'm saying that I'm OK with it either way. Thanks again, and as always, Cynthia, for providing a forum for discussion and image posting, subject aside. Well-done. --- Cynthia Blue wrote:
Has the subject matter on the list moved away from Astronomy too much for your liking? Do you not read most of the emails from the list anymore? Would you prefer to snuff out the political/evolutionary/etc content, and just read about Astronomy?
____________________________________________________ Start your day with Yahoo! - make it your home page http://www.yahoo.com/r/hs _______________________________________________ Utah-Astronomy mailing list Utah-Astronomy@mailman.xmission.com http://mailman.xmission.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/utah-astronomy Visit the Photo Gallery: http://www.utahastronomy.com __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com
Kathleen, do you have any experience with blogs (wordpress, etc.)? --- South Jordan Mom <sjordanmom@yahoo.com> wrote:
Rich's blog idea is good. Or if people want a separate list and have this one devoted to strictly astronomy and space science, I would be happy to set up a list off of the mail server Ken and I own. It's just a basic listserver but this crowd is pretty well behaved in my opinion so that should suffice. I don't know how many lists Cynthia is limited to on Xmission or if she's even interested in being on/moderating a general science discussion list or not, so the offer is open - I'd be happy to setup a list off of warnerit.com if you'd like.
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The recent shower of Evolution/ID messages has been a little much, but I'm good at the Delete key when it becomes overwhelming. I love the list and the members input. Thanks. ----- Original Message ----- From: "Cynthia Blue" <leviblue@utahdogs.com> To: "Utah Astronomy" <utah-astronomy@mailman.xmission.com> Sent: Tuesday, August 30, 2005 7:38 AM Subject: [Utah-astronomy] Looking for Opinions
I'm just curious what the general thoughts are of those on the list. I'd appreciate some input... you all can reply onlist or privately to me if you like.
Has the subject matter on the list moved away from Astronomy too much for your liking? Do you not read most of the emails from the list anymore? Would you prefer to snuff out the political/evolutionary/etc content, and just read about Astronomy?
Thanks! Cynthia
_______________________________________________ Utah-Astronomy mailing list Utah-Astronomy@mailman.xmission.com http://mailman.xmission.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/utah-astronomy Visit the Photo Gallery: http://www.utahastronomy.com
Hi Cyn, thank you for asking. I find the wide-ranging nature of the discussions extremely interesting. It's like sitting around a dinner table with a bunch of sometimes cantankerous, but always interesting, friends who are interested in astronomy. Sometimes the talk strays from supernovas into other areas, and that's just fine with me. Also, thank you for the wonderful service you provide. -- Joe
I have deleted most of the ID discussion without reading it, but I don't think it needs to be stopped. Rich Allen
--- Cynthia Blue <leviblue@utahdogs.com> wrote:
I'm just curious what the general thoughts are of those on the list. . . . Has the subject matter on the list moved away from Astronomy too much for your liking? . . .
I feel the ID thread has run its course and then some. It's time to ban it from the list. Thanks for being listserv admin. - Canopus56(Kurt) P.S. - That shouldn't include banning discussion of castrophic events effecting Earth's evolutionary pathways, e.g. - nearby supernovae and novae dark clouds perturbing the Ort cloud frequency of meteor impacts finding and tracking new Earth-crossing asteriods the galactic habitability zone superflares on seemingly ordinary G-class stars the periodic bursts from the galactic core stellar evolution and the Snowball Earth theory stellar evolution making the Earth uninhabitable in 500,000 million years collision with M31 in 3 billion years high-velocity high-latitude clouds creating nearby starbursts what happens when the Earth crosses the Local Bubble hydrogen density barrier in 10,000 years? Gee, isn't our galaxy such a warm, cosy place? -:) P.P.S. - Please add "Harry Potter" to that list of banned topics. -:) __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com
--- Canopus56 <canopus56@yahoo.com> wrote:
stellar evolution making the Earth uninhabitable in 500,000 million years
S/B - in 300-500 million years. - C __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com
Always an interesting topic. --- Canopus56 <canopus56@yahoo.com> wrote:
P.S. - That shouldn't include banning discussion of castrophic events effecting Earth's evolutionary pathways, e.g. -
nearby supernovae and novae
dark clouds perturbing the Ort cloud
frequency of meteor impacts
(snip) None of which are anywhere nearly as threatening as human evolutionary "success" making the planet uninhabitable for any one of dozens of reasons- or we just kill everything including ourselves off outright. In terms of the length of a human lifespan, or even the lifespan of the human species, we really are in a relatively cozy place- as our presence here and now seems to prove. Based on our predisposition to eliminate competition through the killing of our own species- enhanced by technology, does anyone seriously expect there to be humans around 100,000 years from now? And if by chance we do manage to evolve beyond this primitive state before we self-destruct completely, one would hope that our technology would be capable of massive environmental manipulation (on the scale of a solar system, say). ____________________________________________________ Start your day with Yahoo! - make it your home page http://www.yahoo.com/r/hs
Hi Cynthia and thanks for asking the question. I for one would like to see Utah-astronomy talk about astronomy. I read very few of the posts any more and none that talk about Religion/Politics/Evolution/or where is a great place to eat. The most interesting posts in a while was concerning where to purchase a green laser and the posting of a very fine image of M33. These were interesting and beneficial posts but little else of late have been. Just one person's opinion. Ed Lunt --- Cynthia Blue <leviblue@utahdogs.com> wrote:
I'm just curious what the general thoughts are of those on the list. I'd appreciate some input... you all can reply onlist or privately to me if you like.
Has the subject matter on the list moved away from Astronomy too much for your liking? Do you not read most of the emails from the list anymore? Would you prefer to snuff out the political/evolutionary/etc content, and just read about Astronomy?
Thanks! Cynthia
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It doesn't bother me at all, I like the science talk. This evolution controversy with Buttars is something that is very important going on in the state right now and it has many implications for the future of our education system. It's nice to have some educated people to talk to about it here, I feel I have benefited a lot from it and have some good information to include in letters to my state representative that I would never have gotten on my own had we not been allowed to talk about this here. Cynthia Blue <leviblue@utahdogs.com> wrote:I'm just curious what the general thoughts are of those on the list. I'd appreciate some input... you all can reply onlist or privately to me if you like. Has the subject matter on the list moved away from Astronomy too much for your liking? Do you not read most of the emails from the list anymore? Would you prefer to snuff out the political/evolutionary/etc content, and just read about Astronomy? Thanks! Cynthia _______________________________________________ Utah-Astronomy mailing list Utah-Astronomy@mailman.xmission.com http://mailman.xmission.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/utah-astronomy Visit the Photo Gallery: http://www.utahastronomy.com --------------------------------- Start your day with Yahoo! - make it your home page
Quoting South Jordan Mom <sjordanmom@yahoo.com>:
This evolution controversy with Buttars is something that is very important going on in the state right now and it has many implications for the future of our education system. It's nice to have some educated people to talk to about it here, I feel I have benefited a lot from it and have some good information to include in letters to my state representative that I would never have gotten on my own had we not been allowed to talk about this here.
Y'all keep in mind, if all this effort doesn't pay off with 'Mr. Buttars', (good name for a sitcom) I'm working on plan B. ;)
Cynthia, I've been wondering about moving the whole list concept to a blog (a web log for those of you who haven't seen them); it's a website you can visit at your leisure, comment on, post, etc., without filling up your e-mail. That way any thread or topic can be separate and read independently or easily ignored without having to deal with a full email inbox or deleting items that aren't interesting to you as an individual. And if you like getting email, that can usually be set up from a blog to stream new content your way. Also previous topics are archived automatically so past topics can be explored or revisited at your leisure. Thoughts? Anyone on the list have experience setting up a blog? As to the ID "tangent", I'm fine with it. I'm also fine with politics, so long as they aren't late at night distracting me from putting the truss tubes in the car before I run over them! ;o) -Rich --- Cynthia Blue <leviblue@utahdogs.com> wrote:
I'm just curious what the general thoughts are of those on the list. I'd appreciate some input... you all can reply onlist or privately to me if you like.
Has the subject matter on the list moved away from Astronomy too much for your liking? Do you not read most of the emails from the list anymore? Would you prefer to snuff out the political/evolutionary/etc content, and just read about Astronomy?
Thanks! Cynthia
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http://mailman.xmission.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/utah-astronomy
Visit the Photo Gallery: http://www.utahastronomy.com
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I personally don't care for blogs myself. I have been to a few, and the subject matter gets pushed down very quickly, and can be missed. My preference is for forums. One of which I set up years ago for Utah Astronomy. =) However, it's rarely been used. http://p219.ezboard.com/butahastronomy I kinda gave up on it, but it's still there. Everyone is welcome to go and check it out, post if you want, play around too. =) This forum software is through ezboard, which is so-so, but there are better products out there now that can be installed on a home server (like the one the photo gallery is on). I have experience with many different types of forum software.. such as Invisionboard, Simple Machines Forums, phpBB, and VBulletin. The best, in my opinion, is Invisionboard, but it costs now. Which I wouldn't mind buying if there was support. However, the free ones (SMF and phpBB) are also nice. =) Now Wordpress is something I am not familiar with, but would love to look into. And I think they have a free version that could be installed on a server, too. Returning to the topic of the list... I've received about three emails stating that folks are a bit frustrated with the list subject matter as of late. However, I've recieved about 20 emails saying the list matter is fine, and about half or more of those seem to enjoy it. I rather am glad that the list can evolve through different topics, and find some of it fascinating. I will admit that I do delete a lot of emails without reading them (thus if there is something offensive in one, please let me know off list), but I'm open to letting things flow as they will. Anyway, I hope people will check out those forums above and also include opinions. =) Cynthia Richard Tenney wrote:
Cynthia,
I've been wondering about moving the whole list concept to a blog (a web log for those of you who haven't seen them); it's a website you can visit at your leisure, comment on, post, etc., without filling up your e-mail. That way any thread or topic can be separate and read independently or easily ignored without having to deal with a full email inbox or deleting items that aren't interesting to you as an individual. And if you like getting email, that can usually be set up from a blog to stream new content your way. Also previous topics are archived automatically so past topics can be explored or revisited at your leisure.
Thoughts? Anyone on the list have experience setting up a blog?
As to the ID "tangent", I'm fine with it. I'm also fine with politics, so long as they aren't late at night distracting me from putting the truss tubes in the car before I run over them! ;o)
-Rich
--- Cynthia Blue <leviblue@utahdogs.com> wrote:
I'm just curious what the general thoughts are of those on the list. I'd appreciate some input... you all can reply onlist or privately to me if you like.
Has the subject matter on the list moved away from Astronomy too much for your liking? Do you not read most of the emails from the list anymore? Would you prefer to snuff out the political/evolutionary/etc content, and just read about Astronomy?
Thanks! Cynthia
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http://mailman.xmission.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/utah-astronomy
Visit the Photo Gallery: http://www.utahastronomy.com
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Cynthia Blue wrote:
I personally don't care for blogs myself. I have been to a few, and the subject matter gets pushed down very quickly, and can be missed.
My preference is for forums.
FWIW, when I first signed on to the NASA Ambassador program we used a listserve (much like Utah Astronomy) to exchange info between ambassadors around the country. It was very active, even more so than Utah Astronomy. But then the powers that be decided a forum would be better. So the listserve was discontinued and a forum created. With that forum the only way to get information is to log on to a web site and read the messages. Traffic fell off immediately. It's just so much easier to have the messages arrive in one's inbox rather than have to remember to go look for them. Let's stick with the listserve. Patrick
It's personal preference, for sure. I wouldn't close down the list by any means. I prefer forums, because I don't like having my email inbox packed full of a hundred emails every day, I get overwhelmed and just delete them all. This is the only really active list I'm on (I'm also on some dog agility lists but if I get one email a week from them that's a lot). When I can chose to go to a website, log on, and read what I find interesting, that is much more appealing to me. =) However, the folks around here, obviously, prefer the email list. Because web based boards just haven't taken hold. Cyn Patrick Wiggins wrote:
Cynthia Blue wrote:
I personally don't care for blogs myself. I have been to a few, and the subject matter gets pushed down very quickly, and can be missed.
My preference is for forums.
FWIW, when I first signed on to the NASA Ambassador program we used a listserve (much like Utah Astronomy) to exchange info between ambassadors around the country.
It was very active, even more so than Utah Astronomy.
But then the powers that be decided a forum would be better. So the listserve was discontinued and a forum created.
With that forum the only way to get information is to log on to a web site and read the messages.
Traffic fell off immediately.
It's just so much easier to have the messages arrive in one's inbox rather than have to remember to go look for them.
Let's stick with the listserve.
Patrick
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Though a blog can be set up with (what I believe is called an RSS feed) that can email you any new entries that are posted, so you could have both. I'll try to research this some more. Rich --- Cynthia Blue <leviblue@utahdogs.com> wrote:
It's personal preference, for sure. I wouldn't close down the list by any means. I prefer forums, because I don't like having my email inbox packed full of a hundred emails every day, I get overwhelmed and just delete them all. This is the only really active list I'm on (I'm also on some dog agility lists but if I get one email a week from them that's a lot). When I can chose to go to a website, log on, and read what I find interesting, that is much more appealing to me. =)
However, the folks around here, obviously, prefer the email list. Because web based boards just haven't taken hold.
Cyn
Patrick Wiggins wrote:
Cynthia Blue wrote:
I personally don't care for blogs myself. I have been to a few, and the subject matter gets pushed down very quickly, and can be missed.
My preference is for forums.
FWIW, when I first signed on to the NASA Ambassador program we used a listserve (much like Utah Astronomy) to exchange info between ambassadors around the country.
It was very active, even more so than Utah Astronomy.
But then the powers that be decided a forum would be better. So the listserve was discontinued and a forum created.
With that forum the only way to get information is to log on to a web site and read the messages.
Traffic fell off immediately.
It's just so much easier to have the messages arrive in one's inbox rather than have to remember to go look for them.
Let's stick with the listserve.
Patrick
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--- Richard Tenney <retenney@yahoo.com> wrote:
Though a blog can be set up with (what I believe is called an RSS feed) that can email you any new entries that are posted, so you could have both. <snip>
Just do a yahoo-group "utah-intelligent-design". By the end of the year, you'll be a celebrity. - C __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com
Cynthia: My thoughts, the subject matter has strayed from astronomy lately, but the conversation has been friendly and entertaining. I do read almost all the emails on the list, look forward to seeing new ones show up in the inbox. I don't think there is a need to limit this to just astronomy; there is a minimum of noise on the list and very few rude or offensive posts and many that raise interesting questions and points. I'm more than happy to put up with few annoying posts, it's a small price to pay for the interesting discussions. Just my .02 Thanks for your time and efforts Bill B. On Aug 30, 2005, at 7:38 AM, Cynthia Blue wrote:
I'm just curious what the general thoughts are of those on the list. I'd appreciate some input... you all can reply onlist or privately to me if you like.
Has the subject matter on the list moved away from Astronomy too much for your liking? Do you not read most of the emails from the list anymore? Would you prefer to snuff out the political/evolutionary/etc content, and just read about Astronomy?
Thanks! Cynthia
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Cynthia Blue wrote:
Has the subject matter on the list moved away from Astronomy too much for your liking? Not at all.
Do you not read most of the emails from the list anymore? I at least glance at all of them.
Would you prefer to snuff out the political/evolutionary/etc content, and just read about Astronomy? It's unfortunate but these days it's hard to get deep into certain areas of research without bumping into politics.
So if we have to touch on politics as part of a discussion about science I'm ok with that. However, if someone started a strictly political discussion with no direct connection to science I would be against that. As for concerns about too many posts, that, as others have said, is what the delete key is for. And some may have noticed that those threads that get few posts die rather quickly. Short answer to your question: If it ain't broke, don't fix it. Patrick
participants (12)
-
Canopus56 -
Chuck Hards -
Cynthia Blue -
diveboss＠xmission.com -
Edward Lunt -
Gary Thompson -
Joe Bauman -
Patrick Wiggins -
Rich Allen -
Richard Tenney -
South Jordan Mom -
William Biesele