Since we can expect that we will get folks who are not motivated to seek
out how to use our tools, and since I think that most of our little group
would like to see "The Net" remain as a useful source of information and
not just another "channel" for the TV set, perhaps as a group we should be
more proactive.
I am not sure what articles are on news.answers.newusers these days, but I
believe that a short article on the lines of "The Internet - Start here"
might be useful. A web page with similar content may even fit into last
weeks discussion of marketing the http://www.faqs.org/ site.
Computer stores could be encouraged to include a link to the page with new
systems. (and even Mirror it on their web sites) And the news article
could be posted sufficiently frequently (say weekly) that it would not
expire on most news servers.
The content would be one or two paragraphs for each topic explaining what
news, E-mail, mailing lists, search engines, and the web are for. (In
other words what is this service that they have bought because it has been
hyped so much.) The document should have links to the existing resources
to learn more (Emily Postnews and the like).
Public resources should be used to avoid creating any favouritism, i.e.
refer folks to the National Library of Canada's (or equivalent) search
engines listing rather that a quick link to AltaVista and Yahoo.
(I don't have web access here at work, but I believe it is somewhere off of
http://www.nlc-bnc.gc.ca/ )
My theory is that we are getting into the "CB Radio" phase of the Internet,
and us "truckers" should try to educate the newcomers before they swamp us
out. Unlike BC radio the net has far more than 23 Channels.
As I say, just a topic for discussion, and I apologise if I post too much
on this forum. 8->
Have a good day.
Charles MacDonald - Information Management - NHQ
HRDC Banyan Mail : MacDonald.c@phii.faa.ad@nhq
HRDC Web Mail : macdonald.c@gw019348.hq-ac.prv
Work SMTP Mail : charles.macdonald@hrdc-drhc.gc.ca
Personal SMTP Mail : cmacd@achilles.net