[Rhodes22-list] FAQ

[LogicUnltd@aol.com]

Hello Everyone.

Well, I guess I need to jump in and shoot my mouth off.

For those that may not be aware of how the "old" FAQ pages came about, please 
allow me to provide a brief history. 2+ years ago I began on the Rhodes-list, 
I enjoyed reading all the emails and I collected several because they were 
topics I was particularly interested in. There was a thread about starting a 
FAQ site. I really wasn't aware of all the prior discussion; I was interested 
in web development, so I just jumped in. Put together a few ideas and edited 
my collected emails into several FAQ topics. I then solicited the list for 
people to send their collected emails, only a couple of people responded most 
notably - Doug. He did a lot of work organizing emails. See the problem is, 
people tend to ignore the subject line when they change topics. So someone 
needs to cull through the emails to group them into topics. Doug did a great 
job.

After the first few months, I gave up soliciting for questions and/or 
answers. So I set upon the task by myself of collecting emails by topic and 
periodically formatting them into an html page and posting them. After a 
couple of years my "excitement" for the task has faded a bit. Recently, 2 
events have overwhelmed me and I frankly haven't done much. First, I've 
gotten very busy at work, really too busy, but that should be changing in a 
few weeks (normal business cycle). Second, I believe there has been an 
explosion of off topic emails on the list. If I don't check my mailbox 
regularly there are hundreds of emails, with all sorts of stuff. Which is 
great socially, but just for piece of mind and saving time I sometimes just 
delete without really reading and deciding if this could, maybe, hopefully be 
something for the FAQ site. 

As for MJM remarks about my not responding to his back channel emails about 
the FAQ site. Yes, I ignored him. I was reluctant to give up something that I 
had worked many hours on and the second reason is a bit hard to explain. My 
company blocks access to sites it deems non-business, but it doesn't block 
sites hosted by yahoo (I really don't know why) So I can get to the "OLD" 
site from my work but I can not access www.rhodes22.org from work. So again I 
was reluctant to give up access. I actually do look at stuff all the time on 
the "OLD" site. Yeah I can do it from home. So I probably need to just relax. 
Another reason for not wanting to give up the site was that I simply enjoyed 
working on it and felt that I was contributing to the group. I don't feel I 
have much in the way of sailing expertise to offer so I was offering what I 
could which was my web skills.

Anyway, what's my bottom line on the "NEW" FAQ page? I can see the great 
potential in it. It would be great if everyone participated and worked at 
contributing by offering thoughtful questions and/or answers. I challenge 
everyone to do that. I hope we can realize that potential. I do think someone 
has to edit for content and appropriateness for the topic so I have my doubts 
about "self-managing".  

I look at other sailing groups web sites, I'm sure you all have, I believe 
all the other site's FAQ have been administrated by a single person. Almost 
all of them have pictures included within the text. So we can be the first to 
be "interactive" and self-administered. It will only succeed, if we all make 
an effort to contribute. I will do what I can.

I will still keep my "old" site, which I will update, I guess, for my 
personal needs but everyone is always welcome.

Thank you for listening and visiting the site in the past.

I need a beer

Best Regards

Tom Evans
S/V Tom's Foolery