I'd like to recommend Mike Lowitz' thoughtful message, reproduced below. It's a mistake to think Facebook is the only alternative for group Internet discussions. Facebook is nearly useless for looking up old information. The searchability of our archives is an incredible resource. We have in our archives locality reports, data on sprouting seed in different conditions, descriptions of differences between species - a vast amount of information that researchers might find useful, though perhaps not very often. I think it's very important for that to remain available. Yes, it would be nice for the Board to explore alternative software formats. The PBS must control our own content, rather than have an outside company control all our content. I would certainly be willing to pay a higher membership fee to cover the costs of using and maintaining the technology. Facebook has removed entire discussion groups because the company did not like what was published there. Who knows where that might go in the future? If a PBS member made posts here challenging anthropogenic climate change, might Facebook delete all our content without warning? Chad Schroter proposed an alternative method of posting photos, using Snapchat. People could begin using that right now, and posting the link to their photos here in the discussion group. That, too, is a data harvesting organization, but perhaps less intrusive than Facebook for people without accounts. But we might not be able to access those photos in the future. > A forum befitting our group > Mike via pbs (Tue, 03 Nov 2020 16:07:57 PST) > Hello All, > As someone with a background in software and organization our size and > larger. Our member who just quit the group and brought up the email issue. > Is absolutely correct. The correct thing to do is set up a team to explore > options and report back. > > There are a myriad of options besides Facebook and email extremes. I also > want to share a bit of real advise I was given way back in 2006. I was at a > privacy conference in California. We had an FBI profiler come in and lead a > discussion on identity theft...The Net Net of his conversation was this and > it’s just as true today as it was then. Nothing on the internet is > free..,you either pay for the information or you are the information that > has not changed....while am not a fan of Facebook by any means. They are > no more evil then the free email program you use from whoever. Let’s me > return to topic. > > Please take what I share to address our real > Issue. That’s critical data loss by not memorializing it in an easy to > access forum. > We are using 30 year old technology that was never meant to handle how we > use email...no matter how well you believe you are accessing it...the fact > is unless we all do it the same way we lose information. > > Do you guys realize the level of expertise, decades of expertise we possess > rivals many universities and may be superior in many areas....out of sheer > respect for that we need to capture our own data...it’s the most valuable > thing we have....instead of sitting in the echo chamber today...can we all > recognize two things. > 1. We are not capturing valuable information we share at the drop of a > hat...I’ve learned much here... > 2. Time is valuable and we should value each other enough to make indexing > the information we share a top priority. > > I say all the above out of respect for this group...:we owe it to ourselves > to address the elephant in the room....we share valuable information each > day that no one else generates...let’s value it by organizing it...making > it more useful to our members > > The good news is there are plenty of forum types out there that could fit > our needs once identified. > > Respectfully, > Mike Lowitz > San Diego Leo Martin Phoenix Arizona USA Zone 9? Sent with [ProtonMail](https://protonmail.com/) Secure Email. ---- end Leo Martin message to PBS ---- - . _______________________________________________ pbs mailing list pbs@lists.pacificbulbsociety.net http://lists.pacificbulbsociety.net/cgi-bin/… Unsubscribe: <mailto:pbs-unsubscribe@lists.pacificbulbsociety.net>