>As I said, I am not opposed to  the split of the list, but it strikes me
>as  odd that  Eric would  go  ahead and  delete all  EARN users  without
>letting  me know.  That way,  an uninterrupted  service could  have been
>provided to these users. Only a 'hey, I am going to split it' would have
>been enough for me  to create the list, and place  the EARN members from
>1.6 list to LSTERN-L
 
Well, some times I wonder what I have to do to make myself clear. Here is
an excerpt from a message I sent to the NOG 1 month ago:
 
>Date: Tue, 27 Mar 90 22:29:53 O
>
>(...)  I was  pleased to  notice  the birth  of a  new LISTEARN  Special
>Interest Group (...)  Could someone give me the  electronic mail address
>of the associated  list, or create it  if what we're talking  about is a
>metaphysical group with  no real existence, so that I  can move all EARN
>recipients  of LSTSRV-L  to  that  list, and  close  "The LSTSRV-L  EARN
>Special Interest Group" to EARN subscriptions?
>
>Thanks, Eric
 
I was under the impression that this note said, quite clearly, that I had
very definite plans to remove EARN recipients from LSTSRV-L and move them
to a new list. There was a short discussion on this topic between Turgut,
Alain Auroux and myself,  and the last note I got on  the subject was the
following:
 
>Date:         Wed, 28 Mar 90 15:39:52 EDT
>From:         Alain Auroux <AUROUX@FRORS12>
>Subject:      Re: LISTEARN Special interest group
>To:           Eric Thomas <ERIC@SEARN>
>cc:           Stefano Trumpy <[log in to unmask]>,
>              Turgut Kalfaoglu <TURGUT@TREARN>,
>              Hans Deckers <DECK@BMLSCK11>
>In-Reply-To:  Message of Wed, 28 Mar 1990 14:39:42 O from <ERIC@SEARN>
>
>(...) Now back  on your remarks on the LSTSRV-L  list: I understand your
>arguments on the  advantages/drawbacks of having either one  common or 2
>different lists,  and I would like  to have Turgut's view  before taking
>any king of positon or action on this.
 
This is the  last I heard from  EARN on this topic. I  decided to perform
the split  when, while cleaning  my mailbox, I  stumbled upon the  note I
have just  quoted. It  reminded me  that I  had to  do that  split before
EARN'90, and that EARN was just trying  to delay that as much as possible
(after all, 1 month is plenty of  time to discuss the pro's and con's and
give me a "final" opinion on the split - even though I might not agree to
it, I would at least know the opinion of EARN and we could have discussed
the implementation).
 
>He split  the list at  a very  untimely moment, since  I am at  the EARN
>office in Paris, thus  unable to do list maintenance (you  have to be at
>the right userid@nodeid for it) until Monday afternoon.
 
I had  personally expected EARN to  choose FRMOP11 rather than  TREARN in
order to avoid disruption of service when  the line to Turkey is down, or
when the queues are such that it  takes days for files to get through. If
you create the list on monday, there will have been only 1 working day of
interruption. You  could probably get  it done  at FRMOP11 today.  In any
case  you  can REVIEW  the  list  from any  userid  to  get the  list  of
recipients; I won't send it to  you because people are subscribing to it,
and it might change until monday.
 
>I'd like to stress that it IS a good idea to split the list
 
I'm  glad that  you agree  with me,  but  I think  it's a  pity that  I'm
learning  it only  now. I  was under  the definite  impression that  EARN
wanted to avoid this split at all cost.
 
  Eric