<html><head></head><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; "><p align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in"><font color="#000000"><font face="Helvetica, sans-serif"><font size="3">The
CDT-L is awful. That's not a personal attack, it's not about you. The
people of the CDT-L are fantastic. You are some of the highest
quality people that I can imagine, and the information on this
listserve can be superb.</font></font></font></p><p align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in"><font color="#000000"><font face="Helvetica, sans-serif"><font size="3">It's
the format of this information sharing that is horrid. Listserves
date back to the genesis of the internet. They are outdated and
inefficient. I predict that someday we will move to a more effective
communication medium than this.</font></font></font></p><p align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in"><font color="#000000"><font face="Helvetica, sans-serif"><font size="3">A
notable problem is that people respond to emails/messages to the
original sender only. One could respond "to all". This would
effectively disseminate your comments to a broader audience, and thus
be helpful to the long distance hiking community as a whole. Also, it is
difficult to see the history. What is previously known? What of which
is previously known has been improved upon? How does one search? Why
can't we integrate photos, audio and video? Sadly, the decades old
technology that we use doesn't allow for editable, fully real time
history that would most effectively let the CDT grow. I believe that
the revolution of the CDT-L, the revolution of communication about
the trail, is the singular most important step that can be taken by
trail advocates. Perhaps our activist organization, our beloved CDTA,
could modernize our communication. Or perhaps we should migrate to
something else. ANYTHING would be better. A web-forum, a wiki,
facebook, google wave, web 2.0. For the sake of the trail, I believe
that it's time to start a conversation about moving beyond email
communication.</font></font></font></p><p align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in"><font color="#000000"><font face="Helvetica, sans-serif"><font size="3">I
do not attempt to suggest that we move to a simple solution quickly.
I merely think that we could start a conversation about the future of
CDT communication. What do we want? How do we get the buy in of our
community? Who will lead the way?</font></font></font></p><p align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in"><br>
</p><p align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in"><font color="#000000">
<font face="Helvetica, sans-serif"><font size="3">HYOH, </font></font></font></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in"><font color="#000000">
<font face="Helvetica, sans-serif"><font size="3">Jack
Haskel </font></font></font></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in"><br>
</p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in"><br></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in">PS: I do not know the history of this discussion because it's too difficult to obtain via the CDT-L :(</p>
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