In article <[log in to unmask]>,
"Robert A. Baron" <[log in to unmask]> writes:

|>In this regard, I disagree with the policy of limiting the listserv to MCN
|>members only.  Were it completely open, I believe, aside from informing
|>members of MCN affairs, it would serve a double duty as a means of
|>communication with non-MCN individuals and institutions.  Through their
                     ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
|>involvement in the listserv, they may discover causes for joining MCN.

Well as you might guess from my .signature below and the Organization:
header above, I'm _never_ going to join MCN (I'm a physicist) So why do
I read bit.listserv.museum-l? (the usenet gatewayed version of MUSEUM-L)
Because I find museums in general very interesting and Virtual Museums/
Virtual Libraries fascinating. Hence my WWW site about Isaac Newton
at http://wwwcn.cern.ch/%7Emcnab/n/ which is evolving in the direction of
both. Given this, MCN-L would be particularly interesting to me.

I have quite a wide knowledge of WWW/Internet/Unix and some other
more scientific/mathematical issues which have come up on this list
(eg my posting on Julian to Gregorian calendar conversion)

I suspect that the WWW will allow more and more people to make small
amateur virtual museums, perhaps vaguely related to their occupation
(eg some large fraction of physics departments have set up museums
 based on their collection of old equipment.)

There is a lot of experience in the computer/networking fields among these
people which MCN-L is going to miss out on. Rememeber, on the Internet,
the best work is often done by amateurs - ie people who do something for
its own sake. (And this applies to a large fraction of the technology
MCN-L will rely on for its transport around the world. Technology you
are getting for free because it was written for free.)

|>Because listservs tend to be difficult to start and suffer from initial
|>inertia, the more open and inviting, the better.  Only if such an open
|>policy eventually proves to be destructive to the goals of the sponsor
|>should a closed policy be enforced.

Another option would be to make the contents of MCN-L public: ie have a
WWW archive of previous postings publically available, but restrict the
privilege of posting to paid up MCN members. (This is done for some of
the WWW development mailing lists and seems to work well.) But then MCN-L
wouldn't get the benefit of non-MCN members feedback...

Having lists restricted to members of professional bodies certainly makes
amateurs feel unwelcome.

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  Andrew McNab - Email:  [log in to unmask]  or  [log in to unmask]

  High Energy Physics Group, Queen Mary and Westfield College, London.

  CERN, European Laboratory for Particle Physics, Geneva.
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