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

Jon,

You have made a tremendous contribution with this group.  Your efforts
will be rewarded and will find creative expression in other other
outlets.  Continued Success!  Sincerely, "MO"
--- 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
>




[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/