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