- Information About the Harmonet -

by Tina Gunther

There have been two important developments in the Harmonet in the last couple of months.

The first event was the change in hosts. Instead of operating from computers at Humber College, the Harmonet now resides at http://www.egroups.com/group/bbshop.

There are a number of advantages to this, as eGroups specializes in hosting discussion lists that can be accessed easily from e-mail as well as from an internet web site.

For anyone who doesn't know already, the Harmonet is an unmoderated internet discussion list open to anybody interested in Barbershop music. Discussions range from questions about how to start a new chapter to what exactly was going on in the judges' area at International. Whatever the question, basic or technical, someone on the Harmonet will have an answer or will be happy to discuss that or any topic related to Barbershop harmony.

Between August 25 and September 24, 2000, there were about 1315 messages posted to the Harmonet. That is a daily average of about 30 messages a day. If that seems like a bit more than you care to handle, then you may be interested in the second momentous event that followed close on the heels of the move to eGroups: the advent of HarmonetLite. During the same 31 days this new Barbershop list had 215 messages posted. That's a daily average of only 7 messages and none of them were "Unsubscribe" or "Me, too!" or "You dirty rat!" or the ever-popular "Virus alert!" followed by "No, that's another hoax!" None of them came with extra MIME or HTML code either.

So what is this HarmonetLite, you ask? Here is how list-owner Tom Arneberg describes it:

"This list is a group for SPEBSQSA members and fans to discuss barbershop harmony. It is a 'lite' version of the main Harmonet, because it is moderated. This means that each post must be approved -- posts that don't meet netiquette guidelines and other filtering criteria are rejected. (See the web page http://arneberg.com/harmonet/lite for specific filtering criteria.) Most of the traffic on this list is forwarded from the Harmonet, but you are welcome to send messages directly to HarmonetLite!"

Currently there are seven HarmonetLite moderators who work as a team to keep HarmonetLite a light and timely version of the Harmonet. The web page mentioned in the previous paragraph gives the details on what gets through and what doesn't.

Those of you who are familiar with the BBSNews and Harmonet Tidbits e-lists will find the filter criteria very familiar. That is because the men who used to put out those short versions of the Harmonet are now on the team that moderates HarmonetLite. By the time you read this article, both BBSNews and Tidbits will have been discontinued because HarmonetLite is covering what they were doing before.

Drop by http://arneberg.com/harmonet to find out more about the new, improved Harmonet and http://arneberg.com/harmonet/lite for more about its diet version, HarmonetLite.

Here are some related e-mail addresses.

For the new, improved Harmonet:

Subscribe: bbshop-subscribe@egroups.com
Unsubscribe: bbshop-unsubscribe@egroups.com
Stop Mail: bbshop-nomail@egroups.com
Digest option: bbshop-digest@egroups.com
Indiv emails: bbshop-normal@egroups.com
Post message: bbshop@egroups.com
List owner: bbshop-owner@egroups.com
Home page: http://www.egroups.com/group/bbshop

For HarmonetLite:

Subscribe: HarmonetLite-subscribe@egroups.com
Unsubscribe: HarmonetLite-unsubscribe@egroups.com
Stop Mail: HarmonetLite-nomail@egroups.com
Digest option: HarmonetLite-digest@egroups.com
Indiv emails: HarmonetLite-normal@egroups.com
Post message: HarmonetLite@egroups.com
List owner: HarmonetLite-owner@egroups.com
Home page: http://www.egroups.com/group/HarmonetLite

--Tina Gunther <tgsmiles@hotmail.com>
Barbershop Harmony Fan
Whittier, Calif.

[Editor's Note: Effective with Yahoo!'s takeover of e-groups, replace "egroups" in all e-mail addresses and URLs listed above with "yahoogroups" -- to look at messages posted to the Harmonet, key in "http://groups.yahoo.com/group/bbshop."]