[EBB Sightings] Administrative Update

After almost one month on the job, we thought it a good time to give 
a report of our transition activities from Larry Tunstall's EBB site 
to MDAS.  Please send any questions or comments to 
sightings-admin at diabloaudubon.com


The EBB Sightings List
----------------------
The migration from the old list to the new list seems to have gone 
well.  There are now over 430 subscribers, which makes this list the 
3rd largest of the 25 regional birding lists in California.  If the 
daily volume of messages becomes overwhelming, please remember that 
you can visit the subscription page and change to a "digest" 
subscription, which means that you will receive only one large 
consolidated message at the end of each day.


Problems with the List
----------------------
Our most difficult problem appears to be messages received in various 
MIME formats.  The system really works best if you can set your mail 
program to send text-only messages to the list.  Otherwise, a lot of 
formatting characters show up in the messages which make them 
difficult to read - especially HTML -- and especially in the 
archives.  The problem is an unfortunate limitation of our list 
software which we will need to live with for awhile.  For now, MIME 
styled messages are getting "held" by the software and Ann has been 
releasing most of them to the list in order to keep things moving. 

Another problem is that posters will receive vacation messages from 
people who have set them up.  If you are going to set automatic 
vacation responses while out of the office, please temporarily 
unsubscribe or change your subscription status to no-mail by visiting 
http://www.diabloaudubon.com/mailman/options/sightings/YOUREMAILADDRESS

Finally, there have been some recent off-topic messages.  Although 
that is inevitable in a list of this size, keep in mind that the list 
is mainly intended for the discussion of bird sightings and bird 
distribution in the East Bay.


Message Archives
----------------
We ended up with two sets of archives, one from the old list through 
July, and the other for the new list starting in August.  You should 
all know how to reach them by now, but if not, there are links from 
our homepage at http://www.diabloaudubon.com/index.php and also the 
list information page at 
http://www.diabloaudubon.com/mailman/listinfo/sightings


Events Calendar
-------------------
The calendar of East Bay events has been moved from Larry's site to 
the Mount Diablo Audubon site in a new format.  Mary did this 
wonderful thing, and she now has the duty of maintaining the 
calendar.  She does it by periodic visits to all of the birding sites 
in the Bay area to consolidate the pertinent events from their 
calendars into our own.  You can also submit events directly to Mary 
by sending them to (mary at mccanta.com). If you send her events 
directly please let her know if this info is already posted on an 
organization's website so she doesn't accidentally duplicate it.  The 
calendar is by far the most visited part of our site, with the 
message archives a distant second.  You can find links to the 
calendar on our homepage at http://www.diabloaudubon.com/index.php


Tide and Weather Tables
-----------------------
Larry's fantastic tide and weather tables have been integrated into 
our site by Chet.  You can find a link to them on the left side of 
the MDAS homepage.  This feature will help you find current (and 
future) tide tables & weather information for most East Bay locations.


Other
-----
We are currently evaluating how best to incorporate other aspects of 
the EBB site.  These pieces include the Rare Bird Alerts phone 
transcriptions, yard lists, banding info, birding ethics, and even 
some poetry.  A summary of the remaining EBB information is contained 
at  http://www.diabloaudubon.com/ebb/index.html.  Your opinions about 
the helpfulness of this information would be greatly appreciated at 
this time.  Similarly, if there is information not included in the 
EBB site that you would like to see on the MDAS site, please let us 
know that as well.  In other words, please steer us in the right 
direction!  Send those fine ideas to sightings-admin at diabloaudubon.com


Regards,
Mount Diablo Audubon Society

Ann McGregor, List Moderator
Barbara Vaughn, Website Manager
Mary McCanta, Calendar Keeper
Chet Reynolds, Webmaster
Patrick King, Transition Guy