Kent Ranger Sailing Association

Yahoo Groups & Mailing Lists /?\

24 September 2008

KentRangerOrg:

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/KentRangerOrg
For Association and members' business; boat issues are discussed in other Groups.

Owner: Mark K. (Ruby)

KentRanger20Boats:

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/KentRanger20Boats
For owners' and enthusiasts' discussions of issues and activities relating specifically to the Ranger 20 sailboat built in Kent, WA, and at its licensee in Utah.

Owner: Tim W. (Free Spirit)

KentRanger24Boats:

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/KentRanger24Boats
For owners' and enthusiasts' discussions of issues and activities relating specifically to the Ranger 24 sailboat built in Kent, WA. (Link corrected 10 April 2008. Thanks, Dave!)

Owner: Jerry M. (Pleiades)

KentRanger26Boats:

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/KentRanger26Boats
For owners' and enthusiasts' discussions of issues and activities relating specifically to the Ranger 26 sailboat built in Kent, WA.

Owner: Teresa K. (Stargazer)

What is this?

These new Yahoo Groups services are intended to enhance communications among our group's members. They consist of a number of components, including automated e-mail discussion lists, space for files and pictures, instant messaging, and group calendars to which individual members have write-permission.

The "Group" is a homepage populated with links to the several services. As it is currently configured, the services links work only for members.

Group members have access to all services, the mailing list included.

The "mailing list" is an automated e-mail discussion system. A subscriber sends an e-mail message to one address, from where the list server re-mails it to all subscribers. Recipients may answer either to the List (the default behavior) or to the individual sender.

List-only subscribers cannot use the other Group services. Unlike the previous and short-lived RangerNet mailing list, this List permits the use of one's regular e-mail client. There is no special web page, as there was before.

Adoption of these services by the bulk of members could mean more and better communications both from officers and event organizers to the membership, and also from individual members to the group. This could be good news to a club that has come to expect a long silence after the announcement that nominations are open.

What's with the Boats Groups? Are we splitting up?

No.

Over the last two or three years, a number of boat-specific issues have arisen: rigging failures, centerboard disappearances, and questions about adding comfort to boats. The Boats Groups have been created so that owners of the 20s, 24s, and 26s can share information specific to their boats.

It is possible that owners of the trailer-boats may use their Group to organize events that take advantage of that feature, as in the old glory days of the Ranger 20 Fleets. Some have desired to do this for quite some time, but had been stymied by the difficulty in contacting the others.

What about security? We're sick of spam!

Yahoo assures us that they are doing the best possible to prevent unauthorized access to any information we might store on their Groups sites.

Our Groups sites have been set it up to be "private", meaning that they aren't listed in Yahoo's Directory of Groups. They are members-only sites, meaning that one must have joined as a member to see anything beyond the pretty front pages. This membership requires a free MyYahoo account, which is prompted on trying to join the Group.

The mailing list can be subscribed to without a Group membership. The list of subscribers is never visible outside.

Must I use these services?

Well, no. However, it's possible that at some time in the future these may be the best--or the only--way of remaining in touch with other members of the Association and with other owners of Ranger boats. Your webmaster has put them into place now so that we can see if we like them, and so that they'll be ready should they actually become necessary, as such.

Note that these new services place membership responsibility on the shoulders of the member. This means that subscribers to the mailing list will lose their privileges when they change their e-mail addresses unless they unsub from the old e-mail account and re-sub from the new. Members of the Groups have a somewhat nicer way to accomplish the same thing.

This shifting of responsibility has an upside for the Group member or List subscriber: He can be certain that his freshest e-mail address is in place from the moment he puts it there. In the past, it has been somewhat difficult to get a new e-mail address propogated to the Fleet officers and friends who need it.

How deep is the time sink for subscribing to the List, joining the Group, and belonging to either?

Not deep at all. It's a matter of perhaps five minutes to join a Yahoo Group, including the creation of a the necessary free MyYahoo account. Subscribing to a mailing list is even easier--just send an empty message to a special subscription address. (Note that this is not the preferred action; joining the Group is best--it includes this subscription.)

Thereafter, it may be the volume of List traffic that determines how busy your memberships keep you, but it seems unlikely in the extreme that this load would prove burdensome. A Group member can opt to get only digests or to even eschew List e-mail completely and read its traffic from archives maintained online instead.

Adding an item to the Group calendar might take a few minutes, depending upon one's connection speed. If a detailed description or other typing-intensive work is needed, dialup users might find it expedient to do that editing offline, then paste it into the appropriate place once connected.

Since nearly everything connected with the default state of the Group sites is plain text, pages should load fairly quickly even via dial-up. Pictures posted by Members would be another matter.

In conclusion, it's similar to other aspects of the Web in that the minimum time requirement isn't much of a problem, although an enthusiast might spend more time than the minimum.

Who is responsible for this boon/outrage?

Your webmaster gets all credit or blame. Time (and usage patterns) will tell which it should be.

.See the fine print.
Site development by Mark Kelsey

, who accepts responsibility for everything on this site that nobody else will own up to.