BSA Online (was Re: BSA Publication List)
(no name) ((no email))
Mon, 12 Feb 1996 11:56:56 -0600
Jack Pevear wrote:
>It was announced at a recent conference by Mike Hoover, assistant chief Scout
>Executive, that BSA will have an "Internet presence" by late spring.
Thanks for the confirmation, Jack!! I've received a LOT of email and a couple
of phone calls this morning about this...and it sounds promising until I asked
"what KIND of prescence" are we talking about? A web page? A FTP site with
Scouting publications? Someone to answer OFFICIALLY and AS A BSA NATIONAL
STAFFER questions that we cannot answer here or in other forums?
"No comment".
The closest "response" I can get is from someone in BSA Council Support and it
was "after the last review from the BSA's "Internet task force", it was decided
that the BSA could NOT ignore the Internet and the 'power' that we volunteers
tend to have here, but there was still some concern about who would run "it"
here at National, what kind of input the various groups at the National Office
would have, and most importantly, how much information which usually goes from
N-R-L (national-regional-local council) to the volunteer and membership will
now circumvent that path and instead go down the "superhighway" ".
Present "thought" is to have the Program Group to "run it", like they "run" the
columns in _Boys'_Life_ and _Scouting_, to fill it with the "filler stuff" that
currently goes to local Councils each month in the Council Packet, and add some
clipart (and there's a problem with the clipart...currently everything that
gets onto the Internet gets "bogarted" (it gets reused and cut and pasted to
other documents and other forums) with little if any regard for copyright or
usage restrictions. What's to keep a Scouter from taking a nice clipart item
and posting it, for example, onto alt.clip-art? What's to keep a Scouter from
sending it to Canada or South Africa?).
As I've written over at Arrow-L, the "Internet task force" has been meeting
several times over the past seven months (since the "BSA-Internet" letter
was released), have used several Web search programs to "ascertain how large
the
present "BSA" prescence is on the Web" and getting samples of postings from
various mail/resource groups to see just what format the BSA's prescence should
be.
>From what little stuff was sent to me, I think that the task force
underestimated the number of active Web sites (they counted somewhere in the
low 70s or so) and mailing lists (they only list the ones they knew of...the
Jewish Scouting and the Exploring lists were not included, as well as the
Electronic Scouting support mailing list). The TF only lists the Pluto FTP
site, and basically ignores anything outside of the USA.
The BSA has asked National committeemembers not to have a "visible prescence"
out on the Internet, and it has caused the National Order of the Arrow Chief
to "shut down" his Web site. There are many of those members that have
still maintained email boxes anyway and there's still some "national-level
business"
still being conducted using email.
A copy of one interim report says that one *possibility* will be a "BSA-L"
mailing list (similar to Scouts-L), with membership only available to
currently registered Scouters. This would answer general questions of program
and unit support but will NOT answer "local" questions in the detail or depth
that we get into here on Scouts-L. This also has the added "safety" that the
listowner (whomever that will be) can "kick off" anyone that the BSA deems
(like any other list).
Another possibility is the creation of a closed USENET NEWS list, similiar to
the ones that the Girl Scouts of the USA are considering for it's leadership.
"Closed" in the manner that only those that request permission to join the list
will be able to post; anyone else will be able to read.
Finally, according to the interim summary, it is a conclusion that the BSA
will have an official Web site, and the summary keeps referring to Bill
Nelson's website (the U.S. Scouting Service one) as a "model". However, it was
not clear as to whether or not links to Bill's or to the MacScouter (the
Hendras') or to anyone else's would be "permitted" (can someone please educate
me on how it's possible to RESTRICT links to a Web site?)
Jack's confirmation from C. Michael Hoover, whom is a "internet surfer" and one
of (Scouts-L's) our most vocal proponents at the National level (he's received
a LOT of email transcripts from us over the years and I still believe that he
has a mailbox on Prodigy or CompuServe) assures me that we will be hearing
quite
soon about some REALLY IMPORTANT CHANGES to our program shortly...important
because it will affect us all as Scouters and will reflect just how *powerful*
our daily conversations and chat has been to the BSA -- and other youth
programs!!
I'm just a little leery as to how it would all work...and if we, the "average
Scouter" will receive a positive benefit from it. The final report from the
BSA's
Internet Task Force group will be released sometime in late March or early April
and the Chief Scout Executive is expected to review and approve it sometime in
May and public announcement is expected to be announced in _Scouting_'s "summer
edition" soon afterwards.
Thanks again for the information, Jack...and welcome!!
Settummanque!
(MAJ) Mike L. Walton (Settummanque, the blackeagle) (
co-Owner, Blackeagle Servics of Kentucky (502.826.7046) __)_
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