I guess confusion was inevitable given the changes we made. The ALAC-ANNOUNCE list is for announcements by select ALAC members and staff (select meaning those who typically need to make announcements to the world). The ALAC list is the primary working list for the ALAC and RALO management. Only those can post to it, but it is publicly readable through http://atlarge-lists.icann.org/pipermail/alac_atlarge-lists.icann.org/ or http://www.atlarge.icann.org/en/forum/204. The AT-LARGE list is available to all who want to participate. One would perhaps think that all people who are on the ALAC list would also be here, but that is not the case. In the particular message you were replying to, I was addressing the ALAC and RALO people to start a discussion (prior to tomorrow's ALAC meeting) on whether we need to take some action (policy or practice) to avoid cross posting due to the "anomaly" described above. The RALO lists were mentioned in my posting because it seems common for people to cross post to both AT-LARGE and one or more RALO lists. Alan At 11/08/2008 09:13 AM, Thompson, Darlene wrote:

Alan,

The ALAC list is for announcements only. E-mails such as this that are meant to generate conversation should never be posted to that list as it is a closed list. They should be posted to this list. The reason for that is so that people that only want to get "official" announcements can set their filters accordingly so as to cut down on the amount of e-mail traffic that they receive.

At-Large is where the conversations/debates on issues that affect the entire world take place now.

The RALO lists are for regional discussions.

This makes perfect sense to me. Not sure where the confusion might exist!

Darlene

Darlene A. Thompson Community Access Program Administrator Nunavut Dept. of Education / N-CAP P.O. Box 1000, Station 910 Iqaluit, NU X0A 0H0 Phone: (867) 975-5631 Fax: (867) 975-5610 E-mail: dthompson@gov.nu.ca

-----Original Message----- From: alac-bounces@atlarge-lists.icann.org [mailto:alac-bounces@atlarge-lists.icann.org] On Behalf Of Alan Greenberg Sent: Wednesday, August 06, 2008 1:44 PM To: alac@atlarge-lists.icann.org Subject: [ALAC] Mailing list duplication

The ALAC and (presumably) the ALAC-Internal list includes the ALAC, RALO management and ICANN staff.

The At-Large list is a self-selected list of people which (at the moment) includes all ALAC members, but not not several of the RALO people.

The RALO lists include an unknown subset/superset of these same people.

Somehow we need to rationalize this.

Some questions that come to mind are: - Where do we want substantive discussions with users to take place. - Are ALAC and RALO people obliged to read the At-Large list and comment when appropriate. - Should the RALO lists be identified as being exclusively for issues that are relevant to that RALO only?

Are there more question that we need to consider.? Are there any reasonable answers which will allow interaction with people outside of this lists's members, but will avoid needless cross posting?

Alan

PS The issue came up in my mind because I am about to post a message on the RAA and see no way to hit a reasonable cross-section of people without cross-posting.

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