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

Jon,
  I understand your situation. These groups do change over time. Your
work has been the major influence in making The eBook Community group
what it has been and still is. If you want it to go back to the way it
was, I'm sure you know that isn't likely. On the other hand, it can
still serve useful purposes for the people who would use it. It is
sure to be........different. If you haven't the time to moderate the
group, perhaps someone else or a couple of others could do it.
Something to consider. But your choice, of course. Oh, and thanks.

Bill

  --- In [email protected], "Jon Noring" <jon@...> wrote:
>
> 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
>



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