Re: Important announcement: Seriously considering closing The eBook Community group

I am interested in helping out that takeover.

Jo Lynn Francis

  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Jon Noring 
  To: [email protected] 
  Sent: Friday, November 14, 2008 11:54 AM
  Subject: [ebook-community] Important announcement: Seriously considering closing The eBook Community group


  Everyone,

  In early January 1996, I started the eBook Community (TeBC) mailing
  list/forum. Since then, TeBC has had a remarkable run, and for a
  number of years was the premier mailing list to discuss all things
  e-book.

  However, nothing is forever -- everything has a beginning, and an
  ending. That's the natural order of things. The last couple of years
  we've seen discussion in this group trickle off to essentially
  nothing.

  And the group poll I started a few months ago (which included a couple
  group announcements, see

  http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ebook-community/surveys?id=2739026 )

  has had disappointing results. The poll shows that the actual number
  of people who actively and eagerly follow this group is quite small,
  less than a hundred, despite the indicated number of subscribers
  (about 3400).

  In addition, the number of notables in the digital publishing industry
  who follow this group is even smaller -- most of the notables now
  follow and contribute articles and comments to various blogs
  (particularly TeleRead), and to the private (by invitation only) and
  quite thriving Reading 2.0 list founded and run by Peter Brantley.

  Digital publishing professionals have only so much time they can
  commit to follow the digital publishing "community channels", and it
  is obvious that they have already committed their time elsewhere.

  Thus, I am contemplating closing this group in a fashion similar to
  how John Mark Ockerbloom did for the Book People list: simply pulling
  the plug and not supporting/endorsing any successor group.

  However, I will consider turning over the reins of this group so it
  may continue uninterrupted, provided that a group of five or more
  people *formally* band together into a "steering committee" and
  propose to me, in writing, a cogent vision and marketing plan to
  reorganize and revitalize this group.

  Note that I use the word "consider", since I am pessimistic anything
  can revitalize this group because most online communities have moved
  over to web-based social networking sites, blogs, and forums.

  Also, it is important that this group remain independent of any one
  company in the digital publishing universe, so I will not turn over
  control of this group to any committee that is mostly corporate-
  influenced by one or a small number of commercial interests. This does
  not mean the committee may not include any commercial interests -- it
  may -- but I'd like the committee to be fairly balanced and broad-
  based, to assure the independence of this group.

  And of course, I will assess if the proposed revitalization plan will
  likely attract the digital publishing notables to join, follow, *and*
  contribute to discussion. If I don't see in the proposal a good chance
  of that happening, I'll turn down the proposed revitalization plan and
  simply close doors.

  And, please, do not plead with me, in public or private, to
  reconsider. Instead, if you really would like to see this group
  continue uninterrupted, then work to bring together a
  reorganizational steering committee as described above.

  If I don't see a viable reorganizational steering committee formed
  within two weeks from today, I'll start the process to close this
  group. If an acceptable committee does form, I'll give it two more
  weeks to send me a proposed revitalization plan.

  If I do close this group, which now looks more likely than not, I
  will send out a "goodbye" message similar to what John Mark Ockerbloom
  did for Book People.

  Jon Noring
  TeBC founder and administrator



   


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]


------------------------------------

------------------------------------------------------
Post a message:   ebook-community [[at]] *
Unsubscribe:      ebook-community-unsubscribe [[at]] *
Switch to digest: ebook-community-digest [[at]] *
Switch to normal: ebook-community-normal [[at]] *
Put mail on hold: ebook-community-nomail [[at]] *
Administrator:    ebook-community-owner [[at]] *

(* == yahoogroups.com)
-------------------------------------------------------Yahoo! Groups Links

<*> To visit your group on the web, go to:
    http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ebook-community/

<*> Your email settings:
    Individual Email | Traditional

<*> To change settings online go to:
    http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ebook-community/join
    (Yahoo! ID required)

<*> To change settings via email:
    mailto:[email protected] 
    mailto:ebook-community-fullfeatured-hHKSG33TihhbjbujkaE4pw@public.gmane.org

<*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
    ebook-community-unsubscribe-hHKSG33TihhbjbujkaE4pw@public.gmane.org

<*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to:
    http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/