4th Anniversary of SeeSat-L

Walter Nissen (dk058@cleveland.Freenet.Edu)
Sun, 29 Nov 1998 20:21:46 -0500 (EST) 

At the 4th anniversary of the SeeSat-L mailing list, it is appropriate to 
again thank all of you who have made it such a productive endeavor.  Many 
dozens of you have contributed in one way or another, and postings to the 
list itself make it clear that I speak for a general consensus when I say 
that these contributions are widely valued. 
 
I'm sure if I tried to name everyone who has contributed, I would only end 
by annoying those I left out by mistake.  But I cannot omit a few names. 
Bart De Pontieu made a uniquely valuable contribution by responding to my 
suggestion to create the list.  He has followed up with strong efforts to 
deal with the numerous problems which have developed over the years.  It 
is a tribute to his efficiency that most of them have never been apparent 
to readers of the list.  Neil Clifford and Jeff Hunt have also made 
numerous contributions over a considerable period of time, especially in 
file distribution and Web presence.  If any of you feel strongly enough to 
e-mail me about anyone you feel I shouldn't have left out, I will 
summarize your nominations to the list (e.g., I simply don't know what the 
relative levels of contribution to the FAQ have been, as organized by Sue 
Worden).  Personally, I think Mike McCants would deserve mention, but 
except for his "satwk" postings, he maintains such a retiring, almost 
invisible posture, I'm not sure he wants the attention. 
 
Two years ago, for those of you who are counting that would be at the 2nd 
anniversary, I posted excerpts from the e-mail which made up the earliest 
evidence of the list.  I hope these are still available through the usual 
archival mechanisms. 
 
So many of you have posted reports of interesting observations, elsets to 
help people find interesting objects, vectors to help people generate 
elsets to help people find interesting objects, detailed observation 
reports, provocative questions, answers to questions of all kinds, 
notices of important forthcoming events, helpful suggestions for further 
investigation, clarifications of thorny issues and confusing points, 
identifications of unknowns.  All of you are valued. 
 
Generally speaking, your tone has been positive and your attitudes 
constructive.  Our expectations have been exceeded in this area and we 
fondly hope this will continue.  The vast majority of you deserve our 
thanks for staying very close to the topic of visual satellite observing. 
 
And thanks, too, to all of the many hundreds of you who read the list. 
The Net only works if all do their jobs, those who supply and maintain the 
software and hardware which carries the traffic, those who contribute 
material for distribution, and those who read the contributions. 
 
Thanks to all of you! 
 
Cheers. 
 
Walter Nissen                   dk058@cleveland.freenet.edu
M1416 NISSEN                    -81.8637, 41.3735, 256m elevation