[alfa] administrivia: comments on the future of digest.net

[Richard Welty <rwelty@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

This is one of the trickiest things I've ever tried to write.
Hopefully I'll manage to strike the right tone with this.
Apologies in advance if I fail; it's not my intent to
tick anyone off with this.

I'll start by thanking those who have contributed to the
digest over the years. Those contributions have been a big
help. This message is not directed to you, you all have
done enough. This message is for those who haven't
yet decided to do so.

Right this minute I'm facing a rather harsh reality. I'm
currently engaged in a job hunt, one which has taken
several months and isn't going terribly well. I've been an
IT professional for some 25+ years, and without question
this is the worst job market for my profession that I have
ever seen. Previously, the longest I've ever been out of
work (while looking for work) was 2 weeks.

This leads me to my real topic. Back in August/September
I worked out that if a meaningful percentage (say, 50%)
of the readership readership wanted to make even a very
small contribution (say, $5 or $10) to the lists, these
mailing lists would then constitute at least a 1/2 time job
(and under those circumstances, I'd probably work on it
that way.)

The percentage of members who contributed was about
5%. At the time, with my job hunt starting, I didn't make
anything of it, as the 1/2 time job observation was at
some level a curiosity more than anything else.

But now my family and I are entering into a rather severe
belt tightening; things are getting very stressful around
here. While I do deeply appreciate the contributions of
those who have done so, I'm seeing another message here,
which is that 95% of the readership doesn't think these lists
are worth even $5 a year.

This makes the digest.net look like a luxury, and now is
not a time where I can indulge luxuries.

I have no plans to do anything drastic right away. I just
felt that the readers should get some fair warning that
I'm in a situation that has to change, one way or another.
And if anyone knows any IT jobs in Albany NY or Pittsfield
MA (IT Director, Project Manager, CIO, CTO, that sort of
thing), I'd love to hear about them.

richard
-- 
Richard Welty                                         rwelty@domain.elided
Averill Park Networking                                         518-573-7592
    Java, PHP, PostgreSQL, Unix, Linux, IP Network Engineering, Security
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