From steve@geophys.washington.edu Tue Jun 20 08:17:03 2000
Date: Mon, 19 Jun 2000 19:00:14 -0700 (PDT)
From: Steve Malone <steve@geophys.washington.edu>
To: earthw-list@nmt.edu
Subject: A reply to: www.earthworm.org

Mitch calls for some actions.... So I have taken a few in response as a
beginning of a morph.  However, I also think that some of this may be too much
effort to make much real real improvement at this time.

On Fri, 16 Jun 2000, Mitchell M. Withers wrote:

> 
> Okay so what I'm hearing is that several people have things they
> would contribute if they could and have suggestions for the
> todo list.
	I am not sure what Mitch is hearing but as far as I know there have
been, unfortunately, few responses to his original suggestion.  Ie, at least
publically there seems to be little new to contribute.

>  I'm also aware of developments out there that others
> may not be.  Plus the contrib needs to be updated.  I propose
> that we morph the current Earthworm pages into something more like
> a www.earthworm.org.  It should have at least these sections.
	What is in a name.  The current pages are one level below www.cnss.org
and seem to have much of what he wants.  Of course one can set up another
first level domain (takes quite a bit of effort to regester this, find domain
name servers to handle it and does cost every year) but I don't think that
would generate any more participation.
	So for the details:
> 
> 1) Current Earthworm pages
	OK, we got them
> 
> 2) prominent sign up for earthw-list
	I have changed the pages to make this more obvious, but there are
already over 60 people on it, almost none of whom seem to care.
> 
> 3) prominent contrib
	I assume "contrib" here means earthworm modules, source, software,
etc.  This now exists at the Golden earthworm FTP site but is not at all
effective.  There is no documentation to what is there and no list.  One must
paw around in the individual directories to find anything.  I agree that this
needs a proper way of handling it.  In fact the main releases need a better
way of providing them so that one can see the details rather then just the
whole package and previous releases should be kept available as well.
Maybe we just just rip this contrib stuff out of Golden and run it separately.

> 
> 4) mechanism to add to contrib
	Good point.  I guess one sends stuff to Alex or Barbara and it gets
put in there if one askes.  Don't know for sure and not explained anywhere.

> 
> 5) 'wish' list of desired functions.
	It seems that the earthw-list might be a good place to start this and
see if anyone wishes anything.  If so, it would be pretty easy to suck them
out of the e-mail into a WEB list and formalize the process if it actually
gets started.

> 
> 6) 'work in progress' list with names associated with who is taking the
> lead on each task and when it is project to be completed.
	Good idea. I again suggest that until the earthw-list has more than
one message a month this is a good place to start.  Anyone working on
anything?

> 
> 7) bug reports
	Of course there are no bugs, but OK
> 
> 8) mechanism to add to the 'work in progress' list
> 
> 9) wild ones section for the yak grunt processing modules that I referred
>    to in my June 7 email.
> 
> We all know that Steve Malone doesn't type as fast as he used to
> so we will need to either move the current earthworm page or allow
> access for a webmaster.  I've dabbled in html so can volunteer
> to help with this (hosting and/or helping).  Or we may
> wish to pawn this off on earthworm central or the NEIC if they have the
> staff to do it.
	Actually, I type much faster than I used to (and grunt like a yak as I
do it), but have way more things to type and so do not mind help at all.  
Also, I think I have kept up pretty well with everything I am asked to do
regarding the WEB pages.  I don't edit the documentation (other than the first
round), but Barbara, Lyn Dietz, and Pete Lombard have updated some of it from
time to time.  If there are changes that should be made, send them my way and
I will make them.
	 I would be very glad to set up access to ANYONE, particularly Mitch,
to jump in and add to, change or generally mess up what is on the WEB server
here now. I can set up an access account if you ask.  Or, I am happy to
transfer the whole thing to anyone else as well.  As the WEB page says, the
entire directory structure for everything at www.cnss.org/EWAB
is available as a tar file on our FTP server.  It is updated weekly so anyone
can grab it to morph away any way you you like.

	However, based on the response to these notes thus far, there seems
little interest out there in having the earthworm organization work any better
than it is.  Its a top down thing and few want to take any time to contribute
or even comment on whats going on.  Thus taking much effort to change the
WEB/list-server stuff is probably a waste of time.  I hope not, but....

	Steve Malone			E-mail: steve@geophys.washington.edu
	Geophysics Program 		Phone: (206) 685-3811
	University of Washington	FAX: (206)543-0489
	Box 351650			Office: ATG-226
	Seattle, WA 98195	        http://www.geophys.washington.edu
	


