First, using the archives is slow and frustrating.  Most searches I have
tried fail.  I have the instructions for doing a search by email, but
haven't tried that yet.  Perhaps it works better.

More importantly, I think of this as a community of friends and fellow
Vanagon owners.  When people have a problem or question, asking their
friends is a popular way to begin the search for an answer.  I live in a
rural area.  If I ask one of my neighbors what kind of fencing I need to
keep goats from escaping, and his reply is, "somebody answered that just
last year, so go look it up on www.goatfence.com," I wouldn't find that to
be a friendly response.

I think list members need to decide what kind of list is desired.  If it's
to be only for old cronies to meet and discuss the latest "in" joke, that's
fine.  However, if we want newcomers to feel welcome, we will have to
realize that the same problems tend to come up over and over.  There are
probably almost no "new" problems on a Vanagon.  Almost every message I see
on here relates to an issue that has been previously discussed and is
probably in the archives.

At 12:32 PM 1/30/00 -0700, BILL wrote:
>Why don't volks use the archives. Is accessing them that difficult? If it is
>we need to address this problem.

Bill (SE Arizona) (Bill@freeholder.com) HTTP://www.freeholder.com
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Censorship is the assassination of ideas.  No matter how well-meaning its
proponents may be, they are more dangerous to us than any outside enemy.