Date:         Wed, 17 Oct 2001 13:16:19 -0700
Reply-To:     Cassell.David@EPAMAIL.EPA.GOV
Sender:       "SAS(r) Discussion" <SAS-L@LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
From:         "David L. Cassell" <Cassell.David@EPAMAIL.EPA.GOV>
Subject:      Re: Can we ween ourselves from ListServ? (Was: New member have a
              question)
Content-type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii

Jay Weedon was weedin' out annoyances with:
> ListServ has always seemed to me an inadequate medium for discussion
> groups. I don't want to start a flame war, but wonder how many of us
> would be seriously disadvantaged by a non-email solution?

I would.  My daytime address is behind an EPA firewall.. which has
cut off NNTP access [perhaps forever].  My email access [even through
Lotus Notes] is much better than my web access for lists like this one.
And...

>                                                           Those  who
> haven't tried the alternatives might even be pleasantly surprised by
> how much it would reduce their need to sort mail!

I don't have to sort mail.  I have Lotus Notes do it for me, moving all
SAS-L messages into a separate mail folder for my perusal.  I also use
filters to screen out [some of] the spam and virus warnings that come
in.
The auto-response messages go to my main Inbox and get [mostly] screened
there.

>                                                   And they'd likely
> see a modest saving of Internet bandwidth too, because they would
> download only messages with interesting headers (like having an IMAP
> email server!).

Not for me.  After the screening my mail program rules do for me, there
is not much I don't read.  As you may have noticed, since I may answer
virtually anything [except SAS/AF questions].

Here's hoping this *doesn't* become a flamewar,
David
--
David Cassell, CSC
Cassell.David@epa.gov
Senior computing specialist
mathematical statistician