Congrats, John!
To start, I'd like to state that I am mainly a lurker, but have garnered
reams of info from MAPUG and am forever touting membership to the forum to
those other scope owners with questions, Meade or otherwise. It is what I
consider the best part of my internet experience. On that note, here is my
opinion:

>Then I began to think that maybe
> additionally using mapug.com for mapug-related commercial
ventures/purposes
> segregated from the mapug.org domain could serve a good purpose if done
right.

This sounds good. It might be confusing, but if obvious links from one to
the other, indicating the differences, were obvious, I think this would be a
workable plan.

> Optionally, I'd propose additionally setting up the mapug.com domain to
> support linking to or even actually web-hosting commercialized ventures
> related to mapug who might be interested. Hence, creating a place for the
<snip>
> Anyone interested, please let me know what you're looking for.
> Anything from a static web page to a full-blown secure server ordering
setup
> of your own under the domain is possible.

I see nothing wrong with financing the "free/public" portion of MAPUG with
paying commercial interests. You have gone beyond what most ppl would have
gone to, and recouping costs is totally reasonable. I realize that we
aren't talking about *that* much $$$ for having the domain and the bandwidth
and the mailing lists, but that just means that the cost of the association
with the "Integrity" of MAPUG as a list would not be unbearable for those
choosing to advertise their wares.

> Some may be wondering if I am doing this to commercialize mapug or to make
> money off running the list, selling web space, or whatever.

I don't think anyone will question your integrity, John. This is the
finest, most well run list I have had the pleasure of reading!

> Anyway, the cat is out of the bag. In addition to the ability to
communicate
> on the list itself and find great content archived or created on the
personal
> web pages of many MAPUG subscribers, the long-talked-about
> organizing/centralization of MAPUG content onto the web is about to begin.

This would be a big plus!

> 6. Meade's incentive for rapid resolution of individual issues.

While I have not had a problem in this regard, I know that there has been
some, umm, less than satisified customers in the past. An organized voice
can only strengthen our point. Advanced Products account for a small
fraction of Meade income overall, so individually, we are but an
inconvenience to tech support. Together, well, just imagine what might come
about. $150 for updated eeproms?? Etc, etc...

> 7. Retention of valuable knowledge from members who leave the, as we
> eventually all will, one way or another!
> 8. Retention of valuable knowledge when archive and other major site
owners
> leave.
> 9. Continuity of easy access to data as site owners change ISPs, etc.
> 10. Many other things!

Loss of valuable info off the web is a sad result of here today, gone
tomorrow, web publishing. A repository of info would be great!

So, my $0.02 worth
Mike

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