On Wed, 19 Jan 2011 00:56:34 -0800, in rec.crafts.jewelry Janet_of_all_trades
wrote:


I like this group over Orchid. I find it difficult to get around in
Orchid.

This group certainly takes up less of your time, what with something like one or
two meaningful messages every few months, and only about half of them ever
getting a reasonably useful answer in a similar time period.

The trouble is that when you need an answer, you have little guarantee that
anyone who answers actually knows what they're talking about, since many of the
reply posts over the last two years have been little more than thinly veiled
spam, and a fair percentage of answers have been pretty much from members of the
interested but untrained public. Not a good way to get technical help.

Getting around in the Ganoksin web site can be daunting because of it's sheer
size, it's true. But the Orchid mail list itself can be manageable. Rather
than read the thing on the web site itself (which also can be somewhat
cumbersome if you've a slow connection especially), actually subscribe to the
list so you get the messages in your email.

There are two ways to do it.

With both, it's usually best to set up your email program with a special folder
labeled Orchid (or your choice of names) specifically for incoming messages from
the list. If you subscribe to the list in "digest" format, you get one long
message every day. That's manageable. But it can be a slog reading that long
digest since you can't just skip to message headers of interest.

What I do is to subscribe to the list in it's traditional form, which means
individual messages. I have my email filters set up so all messages from the
list go into that folder, and nothing else goes there. That means my regular
email doesn't get mixed in, which would be a mess. My email program allows me
to set properties for the folder that say messages will be kept there for only
two weeks and then deleted. Any messages that contain any info I might want to
keep get flagged as such (which makes the filter not delete it), or I can move
it to another folder to keep.

Most email programs allow you to specify how you want incoming email sorted,
such as by date, by topic, author, etc. Those options let you set it up (and
switch as desired) so you can intellegently follow ongoing single discussions
but not all the other topics that don't interest you.

Well, I'm getting too wordy here. The point is that Orchid/Ganoksin is indeed
"huge", and can be a bit daunting and unweildy until you figure out how to use
it. But the fact remains that it is currently one of the most valuable places
for people in this field to share and discuss needs, questions, topics, etc.
Nothing else like it exists on the web for our field. Not even close. If
Ganoksin and Orchid are a bit harder to get around, it's still worth learning
to do so.

This group, by contrast, may make you feel good to know you're keeping in touch,
but these days, frankly, there's just not much to keep in touch with.

Janet, if you're a fan of this group, would you be interested in taking over as
moderator? Anyone else want to do it? Maybe someone else could figure out how
to turn it into something useful again.

Cheers

Peter Rowe
moderator
rec.crafts.jewelry