On Tue, 18 Jun 1996 00:09:02 -0500 Winship <[log in to unmask]> said:
>Not a particularly good idea to denigrate those who voluntarily, in
>their "spare" time, keep large professional lists going.
Doug, do you perhaps need new glasses? I haven't been denigrating people
who run lists in their spare time (a group to which, incidentally, I also
belong), I have been pointing out that, with a few exceptions (ISPs
planning to set up a hobby list service, perhaps a few non-profits and
charities, etc), managers don't allocate $$$ from their hard won budgets
to support such lists. If you were to make a survey among academic sites,
you would find that in at least 90% of cases, the business case and $$$
for LISTSERV come from a couple dozen internal administrative lists that
SAVE TIME AND MONEY, or otherwise from a department that has been able to
show that lists run in the course of the university's everyday business
SAVE TIME AND MONEY in the university's direct line of business. The
lists that people run in their spare time are simply not part of the
business justification. I can think of a couple cases where these lists
are actually the real reason why the $$$ is being asked, but the people
who ask for it know better than to say that, and find a way to make a
more traditional, business-like justification.
>Often they have no spare time as all which might be called such is
>devoted to the lists. It isn't "spare" time, it's "made" time.
Like I don't have any first-hand experience with that problem.
Eric
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