[Slowhand] New Friends and Old

[Almighty Geetarz]

Thanks to Scott for kick starting this, it's certainly nice to see the 
names of some old friends I haven't talked to in waaaaaaaay too long.

I would agree with some folks who mention that there is a bit of 
chilling effect from a few people who can't seem to voice an opinion 
without ad hominem attacks.  One lesson I've learned is that discussion 
lists work better when they are actively moderated. This was a failing 
of my own, and I've learned my lesson.  I also learned (a pleasant 
surprise) that there are lots of people who are willing to help out, if 
one is willing to ask.  And I've also found that that type of 
collaborative effort is far more enjoyable than trying to run things solo.

With that said, Scott did sort of completely 100% miss my point, that 
being that a lot of people don't receive the SD consistently (or at 
all), and of those that do, a good number cannot *post* to the list 
which does sort of have the effect that they can't really, umm, 
participate.  I'm sure many of us could all rattle off a good number of 
names that we *didn't* see posting - and that's a loss for all of us.  I 
even miss some of the people whom I *completely* disagree with, because 
I think it's good to have one's opinions challenged every now and then.

Heck, Cheryl even made me listen to an *entire* CD of "Wonderful 
Tonight", once upon a time ... some would argue, that I've never 
recovered ...

A thriving community depends on everyone having consistent access, and 
I'm at a loss as to why this list has had consistent problems for ~5 
years now, yet there are so many lists (many even using the same 
software) that seem to work just fine. 

For anyone who is interested, I mentioned that this came to me as I was 
doing some site maintenance, and I found some old SD issues that I had 
archived.  I started this back in 2001 because there were a number of 
people (it started with AOL users) who were having problems with the 
list, and my initial idea was that I could post the SD issues to the 
site, and those people who were having problems could read it there and 
post with the online submission form.  That never worked in practice, 
and I stopped archiving the digests in early 2002.

Anyone who's interested in reading them - if only for old time's sake - 
can view them at :

http://www.geetarz.org/slowhand/

And there one can even view the spiffy SD logo (yes, we used to even 
have our own logo, can you imagine that!).

Not sure how long I'll leave them up there, so please take a look if 
you're inclined. 

In closing, it has been good to see so many people post, my only goal in 
bringing this up was to see so many others be able to participate.  I'm 
not so sure if we will ever see that happen, and if we don't, this list 
is dead and just doesn't know it yet.  I don't want to see that happen.

Cheers,
AG