Alan Needell sent me a copy of your message announcing a TGI
presence on Compuserve. I want to suggest that many users
who are on the Internet have no interest in the commercial
services, and that this preference for the openness of the
Internet will increase rapidly in the future (another 10
million people began using the Internet so far this year).
I began a dedicated XyWrite list on the Internet earlier
this year, and its membership is gradually increasing.
Although I invited Jeff Ramsay to establish a presence on
it, he is not even listed among the subscribers; whether
someone else on your staff has ever read it I do not know.
It is odd that you prefer to invest in Compuserve, an
expensive means of communication that is open to a narrower
segment of people, while ignoring the Internet, the more
open one. Anyone who can send e-mail to the Internet,
whether they have any other access to it or not, can
subscribe and take part in the interchange of ideas and
information about XYWRITE. That includes subscribers to
Compuserve, Delphi, and every other online service that
provides an Internet gateway, every student and faculty
member in every U.S. college, most people in government, and
those in the large number of corporations that now use the
Internet. The list is open to everyone, and connect time is
free unless you belong to a commercial service that charges
for it.
If you look into it, you will find that a large number of
hardware and software developers are using Internet lists
and newsgroups to provide support at no cost to them except
having support personnel read the facility regularly. It is
well known that for many companies that limit their
investment in tech support, such as Gateway, an Internet
newsgroup is the surest way to get an official reply to a
technical question within 24 hours, and you don't have to
wait on the phone to get it.
I hope you find this worth thinking about. I offered to
provide Jeff Ramsay with information to post on your BBS,
but he has not asked for it. You are welcome to subscribe, and to use
this as a tool for supporting XYWRITE.
CC: XYWRITE List
-- Nathan Sivin History and Sociology of Science University of Pennsylvania Philadelphia PA 19104-3325