First, I wanted to mention that the number of Black-crowned Night
Herons across from the Drake Student Union on the OSU campus in
Columbus is up to at least 7 as of this morning.
There have also been a good number of gulls (Ring-billed & a few
Herring) all along the Olentangy River in Columbus, likely spending
their nights up on Alum Creek and maybe Delaware Reservoirs. Good
place for a black-backed or white-winged gull to show up in the coming
weeks!
Second, here are 5 suggestions to improve list etiquette and ease
competition for limited number of posts per day on this list:
1. It should go without saying that everyone should be familiar with
the posting guidelines at
http://www.ohiobirds.org/publications/emaillist.php#guidelines
2. If you personally know any of the unnamed individuals causing
friction, please make sure they are aware of the problem and encourage
them to help keep the Ohio-Birds list an open and inviting forum for
bird watchers of all levels.
3. Perhaps a line could be added to the footer with a link to the
posting guidelines? Also, the last line could be modified to encourage
people to report "abusive" off-list emails. The last two lines might
read something like:
Ohio-birds mailing list, a service of the Ohio Ornithological Society.
Our thanks to Miami University for hosting this mailing list.
Additional discussions can be found in our forums, at www.ohiobirds.org/forum/.
You can join or leave the list, or change your options, at:
http://listserv.muohio.edu/scripts/wa.exe?LIST=OHIO-BIRDS
Posting guidelines:
http://www.ohiobirds.org/publications/emaillist.php#guidelines
Send questions, comments or report abuse to: [log in to unmask]
Alternatively, we go for something like the Alaska Birding list's
footer (see http://birdingonthe.net/mailinglists/AKBD.html), which
reads "Remember -- Be nice!"
;)
4. If you're going to make frequent updates about rarities, make more
efficient use of rarebird.org. Admittedly, this is a tough sell
since, as it stands, the site is more cumbersome to use than
Ohio-Birds because you can't just send an email to post a sighting,
plus it isn't as easy to skim all the recent posts. Nevertheless,
it's a free resource available to all Ohio birders.
5. Get rid of the daily posting limit, or make it larger. I can think
of three ways to do this:
a. Ask Miami University to raise or remove the limit (for free)
because it's causing problems.
b. If we have to pay them for it, I think I speak for many on this
list in saying that I would GLADLY pay a few dollars a year (perhaps
an optional donation along side an annual OOS membership fee?) to get
rid of this daily limit. Surely a few extra emails can't be too
expensive to forward.
c. Host the list on the ohiobirds.org servers or with another OH
university, instead of relying on Miami University, if feasible.
d. Host the list on one of the many free email list services out
there, like yahoogroups (used by many state listservs) or
googlegroups.
You can get a sense of what other states and organizations used for
email listservs by looking at the URLs listed here:
http://www.aba.org/resources/mailinglists.html
I REALLY don't see why this daily posting limit needs to exist given
the low cost and availability of email services.
Good birding,
Paul Hurtado
Columbus,OH
______________________________________________________________________
Ohio-birds mailing list, a service of the Ohio Ornithological Society.
Our thanks to Miami University for hosting this mailing list.
Additional discussions can be found in our forums, at www.ohiobirds.org/forum/.
You can join or leave the list, or change your options, at:
http://listserv.muohio.edu/scripts/wa.exe?LIST=OHIO-BIRDS
Send questions or comments about the list to: [log in to unmask]
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