[GSBN] a Cob list serve

[Bill Christensen]

On 3/13/14 9:47 AM, Misha Rauchwerger wrote:
> How about we simply have a protocol where cob or earth is in the title 
> of any thread, so it can be ignored by those who are not interested, 
> and read by those who are, not unlike if it was a thread on some other 
> topic, such as thermal performance, or any other topic that might be 
> of interest to a more limited audience.  Those of us on the "earth 
> related practitioners" list who might know of others out there that 
> meet the criteria for GSBN nomination, and are active in earth 
> building, can bring them on board.
>
> I welcome your continued discussion,
> Misha
>

While I respect your point and agree that it is theoretically possible 
to run two separate conversation threads on one listserv, in practice I 
doubt it'll work.  It'll start out fine, but after a while people will 
start forgetting to put the right subject line in (y'all don't even 
remember to follow normal list etiquette like trimming your posts or 
changing the subject line when you jump to a new topic).

There has long been an understanding on this list that although the name 
specifically targets "Straw", other related topics are not forbidden.  
The Last Straw Journal takes a similar approach.  We talk about 
plasters, rammed earth floors, and what have you.  If that's *all* 
you're going to talk about then maybe you should be on a list 
specifically for that purpose and not here, or on a more general list.  
But if some non-straw natural building topic comes up in here from time 
to time it hasn't been a major problem.

Personally, I'm lurking on a bunch of other lists and invite anyone 
interested to join those discussions:

Adobe (adobe at yahoogroups.com)
Greenbuilding (greenbuilding at lists.bioenergylists.org)
Organic Architecture (organic_architecture at yahoogroups.com)
Papercrete (papercreters at yahoogroups.com)
Practical SBC (practical-sbc at yahoogroups.com)
Rainwater Harvesting (rainwaterharvesting at yahoogroups.com)
Solar AC (solar-ac at yahoogroups.com)

and both the bioenergy and Sb-R-Us strawbale lists, as well as a number 
of technical, green, and other lists not directly related to natural 
building.  Some I monitor more closely than others.  Part of the trick 
is to learn how to filter your incoming email so that each discussion 
goes into its own little cubby hole and waits there for you to get 
around to reading, or in some cases skimming.

I have not found any discussion lists directly related to rammed earth, 
earthen floors, earthen plasters, thatch, or many of the other natural 
building techniques which don't see as much online discussion as straw 
(are the practitioners more luddite-leaning? are they less organized? do 
they have other ways of communication which work fine for them?).

I would be open to creating a separate and more general Natural Building 
or Earth Related Building discussion list, either open or with a "by 
invitation" structure similar to GSBN if there's enough call for it.  
But I'd want to see a fair bit of enthusiasm from enough people who have 
a pent-up desire to talk about such topics before I do so, as I have a 
strong dislike for creating and maintaining forums that nobody ever uses.