The Latest on the Move — Who Gets All Email

Even though my last post was only four days ago, a lot has been going in with the move. So, I thought I’d fill you in.

Keeping The Archives

Our original plan was to only keep posts from 2010 and later.  This decision was met with, shall we say, a great deal of surprise, and not a little displeasure, by the Community.  The feedback started within a few short hours of my initial post on the topic, with Mr. Roberts posting that keeping the entire archive “would be a huge benefit for the industry.”  Another, somewhat less temperate, member equated the potential loss of the old posts with the burning of the library at Alexandria.  That made me laugh (and for some reason made me think of John Cleese railing about “The Hanging Gardens of Babylon” and “herds of wildebest sweeping majestically across the plain”… but I digress).  But we got your point.

We appreciate the feedback.  AND we appreciate how passionately the Community feels about the archive content.

We’re working on a scheme to keep every post ever made.  The first part of that scheme is to do (yet another) “trial migration” of the list data, this time all the way back to the beginning, and see what problems turn-up in the old posts.

We have also had an extraordinarily generous offer from a well-respected Community member, who offered — in case we can’t migrate every post — to write some code to help us by creating an archive we can store and make available to the community.

So… one way or the other… we’ll find SOME way to keep the archives.  Again, thank you for your feedback.

Who Gets Every Post Via Email

Recall that as part of the initial move, we’re going to create two groups of users:

• General Users, who can post online or via email, and can sign-up to be notified via email of replies to specific topics of interest.
• All Email Users, who can do everything that General Users can do, but in addition can optionally elect to receive every new thread and every reply via email (like “email” members of the lists do today).

Recall that we also said that we intend to extend the “All Email Users” ability to every user eventually. However, due to some technical issues at our hosting provider, we can’t do this right away.

So… that obviously begs the question of who’ll get to be in the “All Email Users” category, right?  Well, I’ve made a first attempt at creating that list, and the list of folks by member name who’ll be in the All Email Users group appears (in text file format) here.

Yes… it’s in alphabetical order by first name of your member name.  So, for example, the Community member who’s username is “A K” is first on the list, and our colleague whose first name happens to be “Zac” is last on the list.

If you care about this issue, please look at the list.  Bear in mind, the list is by forum member name.  So, for example, well-known community member Mr. Bond appears on the list as “M M” not his email address or his “email name” (which, if you’re an email user, you may be more familiar with).

The people on the list will be able to select to receive all email from NTDEV, NTFSD, and/or WINDBG.

If you have feedback to provide, I’d appreciate receiving it via email to our Community Move alias.  Please don’t clutter up NTDEV with posts saying “why aren’t I on the list” or “Why are you including so-and-so” or “who is this-particular-name.”

The list I created is biased toward folks who participate in one or more of the lists.  I only have a limited number of slots that I can give-out as “All Email Users” at this point, and I’m giving people who actively participate priority over those who (for example) use email to keep a nice tidy archive for their own use, but don’t ever take the time to answer the questions that others ask.

I am interested in hearing if you’re NOT on the list and you really want to be on the list.  I don’t want people to beg… but if you get in touch asking to be added, I’d appreciate hearing your reasoning why.

I am particularly interested in hearing from folks who participate via NNTP today, and who can’t or (due to their work style) would find it onerous to participate via the web interface, and who would like instead to be in the All Email Users group.

(added later) I’m also interested in hearing from any folks who are on the All Email list and who feel like they don’t need to be or don’t want to be on that list.  Make a slot for somebody else, if you can.

As always, we’re working hard for the Community… and we’re grateful for your participation and your feedback.  Always.