Jon Fritz died; and how to manage the list?

First, I just got authoritative word that Jon Fritz died a couple years ago at his family home in Alaska. R.I.P.

From: Carl Bostek [sv.aphrodite@gmail.com]
Sent: Friday, May 18, 2007 23:28
The e-mail "list" has become too cumbersome since it's not a managed list -- not everybody gets every e-mail.

Hi Carl,

No, you're right. (And this is an example. You only wrote to me, and I started out responding to you, but decided to copy the group in hopes of getting wider input. Hope you don't mind.)

As it is now, each person who emails either decides for themselves who they want to send to or copy, or (if they hit Respond to All) simply sends to whoever was on the email they're responding too (perhaps without thinking about who is or isn't included). I sent out -- and then repeatedly updated -- my spreadsheet database (via which I'm trying to track down contact-info on more classmates), but I can't tell if anyone is actually using it, although a few people have commented on particular points in it, indicating that they had looked it over.

Do you have any suggestion how to manage our discussions better? So far, despite repeated suggestions from several of us, only 8 people have joined the blog. Incidentally, Elsa, I noticed that there's a button (I think it's a T, for text I suppose) by which you can change the size of the text you're posting!

A Yahoo group (or something similar) was also suggested -- which can act like a blog but also send out the emails as often as one wants (i.e., individually, as a daily summary, or not at all -- can our blog do that?) -- but one that I'm a member of (for my high school class) only has a small membership too (about 15), despite a much larger pool who were notified about it.

Yet I keep asking people on my spreadsheet (i.e., those who haven't already opted off of "routine group emails") if they want to opt off, and very few have said that they do.

Occasionally someone seldom heard from will email, either to the group, or to me privately, and I'm surprised to realize that they've been reading. Someone I least expected (I forget who now, someone who left before I arrived in Santa Fe) said "thanks for organizing this virtual reunion", although I don't believe they've emailed to the group!

So what to do?

Rick