On Wed, 10 Feb 1993 11:49:33 EST Matthew Simpson <054340@UOTTAWA> said:
 
>I have recently  been notified that this topic is  a very sensitive one.
>It was not my intention to start a flame war. Honestly, I, and my lists,
>are engaged  in the BITNET/INTERNET shuffle.  So, I wanted to  solicit a
>discussion  from others  who find  themselves in  similar positions.  No
>offense intended. My appologies.
 
That is not why I reacted the way I did. One of the main purposes of this
list is the  exchange of technical information. Many list  owners are not
computer professionals and  this list allows them to  solicit advice from
more technically knowledgeable people so that everyone can benefit. There
is nothing  shameful in  not being a  computer expert if  your job  is to
teach philosophy.
 
However it is  an entirely different thing to walk  in with strong, black
and white statements presented as factual  evidence but which are in fact
at best debatable,  and sometimes plain wrong, and  then make predictions
based on these "facts"  and ask around if people agree  with you and what
they plan  to do  about it.  This is  what I  called the  lemming effect:
people without much technical  computer knowledge read something alarming
on some forum their attribute some credibility  to, think "oh my god in 2
years at most LISTSERV will be gone,  I better move my lists to something
else before  I get stuck", and  create a self-fulfilling prophecy  due to
the unavoidable "that many people can't POSSIBLY be all wrong".
 
The reality is that I don't see any convincing signs of BITNET's imminent
demise. Even if this were to happen,  I don't see how this would suddenly
prevent LISTSERV from  exchanging mail with Internet  users, a capability
it has had for many years. This is just like saying you should scrap your
CD player  after copying  all your  CD's to  regular audio  tapes because
there is a rumour Sony will come up with a minidisc that will make the CD
obsolete in  a year.  This is just  speculation, and even  if it  were to
happen your CD player would still work  and so would the hundreds of CD's
you've already got.  There would be plenty  of time to decide  what to do
about your CD's, and they can always be dumped to tape later.
 
In other words, much ado about nothing.
 
  Eric