ADMIN: Possible Change to the Main List Settings

[bluesqueak]

I think, myself (as a strictly unofficial myself) that the 
advantages of having the site public breaks down into two main 
points.

Firstly people could read posts without joining.

Secondly, we could use a better search engine.

But those advantages are both possible by other means.

There are other Yahoo groups who have a public/private life. Mostly 
they have a private Yahoo group, and a public website. 

What's on the website depends on how much effort you want to put 
into it. The static form is like our 'Fantastic Posts' - we select 
good posts, put them up as a sample, leave it as is for much of the 
time.

The active form is where the site is updated most days, with 
particularly good posts, maybe from recently, or maybe posts months 
old that, with hindsight, seem particularly relevant/sparked off 
major theories.

I don't know an HP one, but there's a Buffyverse site that follows 
that pattern   http://teaattheford.net/  A private Yahoo group, and 
a frequently updated public site. I love the public site; not only 
do I get to be a lurker without joining yet another group, but 
someone's even picking out the good posts for me. 

In both types of site, you ask people if they want their posts 
transferred, and can 'anonymise' them if necessary.

The search engine problem: as Caroline has pointed out, there's 
already a project on hand that may solve that without opening the 
group up to public searches. Or, as Kelley pointed out, we could 
move to a paying group if a)Yahoo ever offers that option and b) the 
advantages seem worthwhile.

So it isn't an either/or thing. There are other ways of getting the 
advantages of opening up the group to public view/search. We might 
like to consider whether those alternatives are closer to what we 
*really* want.

Pip
[finally delurking on Feedback]