Re: Robins

Louise Parsons wrote:
> Garden Clubs have traditionally had "round robins". These were groups of
> people who sent a collective letter called a robin around in a circuit with
> each member adding their observations and sending it along to the next
> person on the list. Sometimes the whole thing was published after a period
> of time.
> 
> I am unsure exactly what the term means in the electronic world. maybe it
> means a more specialized group.

Sharon McAllister wrote:
> 
> Technically speaking, I suppose the e-mail robins fall somewhere between
> conventional return robins and this list.
> 
> They're less structured than return robins, in that there's no rigid schedule.
> They're more specialized than this list, in that each group is formed around a
> special interest.  The letters do tend to be a lot longer and more detailed than
> the messages posted here.
> 
> If you'd like to join an existing robin, or start a new one, just let me know.


LONLEE2086@aol.com wrote:
> 
> Hey John Jones,   Robins were the same as this list we're on.  They were sort
> of like chain mail that got bigger as they went throuth the list of
> participants.  You could ask questions to the group.  You would have to wait
> a long time for your response.  When the robin went through the entire list
> you removed the last material you added to the robin.  With the e-mail,
>  results to questions or answers to questions would be very fast.  Plus you
> wouldnt have to keep up with other peoples mail.  From what I understand
> robins would come up missing every once in a while.  Robins are subject
> specific.  Historical Iris,  breeders,  siberian, Japanese,  spurias,  and
> Louisiana to name a few.  I never participated in any of the regular U.S.
> mail Robins,  but i am interested in Robins of the electronic type.

Thanks everybody.

I thought that is what it might be. In the electronic world of newsgroups like our 
iris group, a robin would be a "thread" that is a set of email that all have the 
same subject. Some one starts it out with a question or comment, and people add to 
the thread by "replying" to any message in the thread. It is slightly different in 
that not all comments get put in the same document (although someone could make the 
effort do that at any point in time.) All the exchanges about licensing hybridizers 
could be considered a thread or (modified)robin. I suppose a specialized newsgroup 
could also be considered a robin. Each one would have a separate list server 
address. On one hand if you didn't have a particular interest in that newsgroup you 
wouldn't have to participate, on the other hand, most email programs can organize 
your email buy thread, so you could just ignore particular threads within a main 
group (like our iris group). On the other hand having multiple threads in a 
newsgroup make it easy to follow things that are of some interest (like germinating 
seed for me) without someone having to manage a listserver.
Anyway, thanks for the responses.

-- 
John                     | "There be dragons here"
                         |  Annotation used by ancient cartographers
                         |  to indicate the edge of the known world.
Other Mailing lists | Author Index | Date Index | Subject Index | Thread Index