FW: KABISSA: note to www4mail@kabissa.org users

Hello,

Below is a message I sent out on Friday to users of the Kabissa www4mail
server. I would like to extend the same invitation to you, and would be
grateful if you could help spread the word. We have already gotten some
excellent stories and feedback. We need these stories in order to evaluate
the usefulness of the www4mail server. We've also had some technical issues
that we'd welcome help for troubleshooting and sorting out.

Could somebody please inform me of other www4mail-related discussion lists
that are out there, besides www4mail-comments@w3.org?

Cheers,

Tobias

KABISSA - SPACE FOR CHANGE IN AFRICA
http://www.kabissa.org
Sign up your organisation for Kabissa Membership and get standard Internet
accounts with web space, mailboxes and automated mailing lists. Even if you
do not need Internet accounts, sign up today to get a listing in our Member
Directory! Low-cost domain hosting also available.

THE WEEKLY KABISSA-FAHAMU NEWSLETTER
http://www.kabissa.org/newsletter.html
Sharing information: Rights and democracy, Health, Education and social
welfare, Women and gender, Refugees, Environment, Media, Emergencies and
crises and Development. Fundraising, Internet Links and Resources,
E-Newsletters, Networks and Mailing Lists, Jobs, Members Corner, Free Small
Ads

-----Original Message-----
From: owner-www4mail-users-l@kabissa.org
[mailto:owner-www4mail-users-l@kabissa.org]On Behalf Of Tobias Eigen
Sent: Friday, January 26, 2001 5:32 PM
To: www4mail-users-l@kabissa.org
Subject: KABISSA: note to www4mail@kabissa.org users


Greetings,

You are receiving this message because you have used the Kabissa
www4mail@kabissa.org server during the last week. I hope you will pardon the
intrusion in your e-mail mailbox, but I wanted to get in touch with you to
tell you about Kabissa, explain why we set up the www4mail@kabissa.org
server, and to ask for your help.

Kabissa is a non-profit capacity-building organisation that serves the
African non-profit sector. Through our Internet server, we are able to
provide a space on the Internet for the African non-profit sector. Eligible
non-profits get free membership accounts, including standard e-mail
mailboxes, FTP accounts, web space and majordomo mailing lists. We also
provide domain hosting services at low cost. We promote our members through
a member directory on our website, and we have a popular weekly
e-newsletter. The newsletter contains summaries and links to a host of
Internet content relevant for Africa, including: Rights and democracy,
Health, Education and social welfare, Women and gender, Refugees,
Environment, Media, Emergencies and crises and Development. Fundraising,
Internet Links and Resources, E-Newsletters, Networks and Mailing Lists,
Jobs, Members Corner, and Free Small Ads.

As you might imagine, a great many of our members do not have regular access
to the world wide web. We set up the www4mail@kabissa.org server to enable
them to access web pages by e-mail. It seems to us that the server is an
excellent complement to our newsletter and website. Altogether, these three
services provide access to an almost unlimited wealth of information. The
newsletter provides the links, www4mail@kabissa.org provides the access, and
the website provides the means for making information available that isn't
already available elsewhere.

This has been an intuitive feeling on our part. It has in fact not been that
easy for us to evaluate how useful the www4mail@kabissa.org server is, why
we should keep operating it, and how we might make it even more useful.
According to our log files, we get hundreds - sometimes thousands - of
requests every day, from all over the world. In the last week alone, over
500 individual users were registered. The vast majority of
www4mail@kabissa.org users are NOT in Africa, and in fact a large proportion
of the information requested is clearly not of professional or essential
nature.

I would like to ask for your help. Please reply to this message and give us
some good "stories" about the use of the www4mail@kabissa.org server. Tell
us about yourselves, your information needs and how you have been using the
Kabissa www4mail@kabissa.org server. What kind of information have you been
requesting and with what regularity? How difficult is it to get the same
kinds of information through other means?

If you are interested in helping to shape the future of
www4mail@kabissa.org, I would like to invite you to join an unmoderated
discussion list on Kabissa and to share your stories and ideas there. The
discussion will be targeted specifically to www4mail@kabissa.org and the
African non-profit sector. Instructions for joining the discussion list are
below.

Best wishes,

Tobias

Kabissa - Space for change in Africa
http://www.kabissa.org

TO JOIN THE KABISSA WWW4MAIL DISCUSSION LIST
Send a message to 'majordomo@kabissa.org' with only the command 'subscribe
www4mail-discuss-l' in the body of your message. The discussion list is open
and unmoderated.

TO UNSUBSCRIBE FROM THE WWW4MAIL USERS LIST:
If you plan to continue using the www4mail@kabissa.org server, you will
automatically remain on the distribution list. If you do not want to get
these mailings, you are free to stop using our service and unsubscribe by
writing to majordomo@kabissa.org with only command 'unsubscribe
www4mail-users-l' in the body of your message.

Received on Sunday, 28 January 2001 09:58:53 UTC