[plug] Suggestion for web site

[Bret Busby]

On Tue, 31 Aug 2004, Craig Ringer wrote:

> 
> >>In other words, it should be possible to look at the page and say
> >>"Hmm, these folks carried <blah> 9 months ago but no news since."
> > 
> > I have a nasty suspicion it would end up like the old PLUG site,
> > i.e. a few entries put in to start with, then no updates for ages.
> 
> As do I.
> 
> --
> Craig Ringer
> 
> 

Surely, it would not be so difficult, if my suggestion is implemented, 
to do it with the requirement/request, that people check their local 
newsagents, every <3|6|9|12> months, to try to keep the information as 
up to date as reasionably possible?

Similarly, it could also be useful, depending on the individual 
newsagents, to ask the individual newsagents to advise by email (to some 
preset email address, eg webmaster at plug.org.au), any changes to the 
stocking of Linux (and Linux-related, so as to include Australian 
Developer) magazines.

Perhaps, it could also be possible, if the newsagents are agreeable, to 
get email addresses from newsagents (who have them and use them), so as 
to periodically send an email to the individual newsagents who are 
included in the proposed listing, an email such as "Our records and our 
web page, currently show you as stocking the following Linux and Linux 
related publications. Please confirm that the deatils are still correct, 
and please advise of any further Linux and Linux-related publications, 
that you stock, or, of any that you no longer stock."

There is a proverb that goes something like "It can be easy to find many 
reasons to not do something".

If you consider how many subscribers to this list, live in Perth (I do 
not know how many list subscribers exist - perhaps, someone could tell 
us that?), and how many newsagents they could cover, in their immediate 
localities, in total for Perth, it could be quite a useful resource, the 
web page that I have suggested, and could be quite beneficial to the 
Linux community in Perth, and to publishers of Linux and Linux-related 
publications, and to the newsagents who stock Linux and Linux-related 
publications.

It just takes enough people to want it to happen, and, who are prepared 
to do the work required to make it happen.

-- 
Bret Busby
Armadale
West Australia
..............

"So once you do know what the question actually is,
 you'll know what the answer means."
- Deep Thought,
  Chapter 28 of 
  "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy:
  A Trilogy In Four Parts",
  written by Douglas Adams, 
  published by Pan Books, 1992 
....................................................