After weeks or even months of quiesence, the Frisco Yahoo! Group has erupted with discussions of: Starting a Frisco Historical Society Publishing a Frisco Magazine Holding a Frisco Convention I recognize many of the names involved, but what surprised me the most was that some people do not even seem to know about this site or all of the terrific information here. Friscomike has invited all to come take a look, and offered to host and post info, as in this thread, http://www.frisco.org/vb/showthread.php?t=2521, which can only make this site even stronger. Do we need a magazine or a historical society, or are we ahead of the curve, as Bob Hoover has said, thanks to this site? I wonder if everyone on this site is aware of the rumblings taking place on the Yahoo! group. If not, maybe we ought to weigh in and make our opinions known.
The reason I'm here, instead of there, is that.....of all the Yahoo! railroad groups I'm involved in, the Frisco group was the dead-est.........
Howdy Folks, There is a fundamental difference between the Frisco Yahoo group and FRISCrg. Yahoo groups collects and distributes real time discussions via email (often called a remailer), and presents the discussions in a web format. The Yahoo group concept has been around for a long time. The nice thing about Frisco Yahoo is that folks can receive emails about subjects as soon as they are written, instead of waiting to log onto a web page. Yahoo groups have their roots in the Usenet, but have evolved to the point that they can host files and photos, too. I use the group as a remailer, and those of you who are subscribers to Frisco @ Yahoo will often see my requests for information. The response is usually instant, too. I post messages here, too, but the Yahoo group request often gets the fastest response. Yahoo groups are free to set up and operate which is a big benefit for most folks. FRISCrg is more of a structured repository for information, documents, and photos; as the name implies, it works like a library with a Dewey decimal system. Discussions work the same way as Yahoo, and you can even have FRISCrg send you responses to topics as they are responded to by other members. FRISCrg isn't free to operate, we have to pay web hosting costs, maintenance fees, software license and upgrade fees, etc. We have not tapped all the possibilities of the software we use at FRISCrg, simply because I don't see the demand or need for it now. We could implement all the features of a Yahoo group here, but we don't see the need when Yahoo exists and works fine. We think we can use both groups and others like Trainboard, Dr Condren's site, the Springfield museums site, etc. Perhaps we haven't tapped all the other Frisco sites that are available, but would like to. We would like to know where they are so we can add them to our family of Frisco Folks. I have been actively involved in the discussions about the Historical Society, as well as many other folks on FRISCrg. The debate is healthy and helps us understand what is best for us, as Frisco folk. There have been a lot of terrific ideas presented, and I am glad they have been raised. Perhaps we can do some things as a collective group of Frisco fans that will benefit us all. I hope some of the ideas that have been presented are implemented. If folks haven't figured it out by now, I do not feel threatened by any other groups or websites and welcome the diversity in points of view and perspectives that they provide. The more the merrier makes sense to me. Thanks for posting your concerns, encouragement, and support at FRISCrg. We are trying to do our part of sharing all that we know about the Frisco. Best regards, mike
Welcome aboard! While there's not the traffic of some of the general model railroad sites, the quality is high and there's more than at the Yahoo! group. There's TONS of good information here. This site has moved from strength to strength, I think. The FMIG newsletters are here. One of my favorite new features is the "Random Attachments" pictures--I go off on all sorts of interesting tangents with that. While I read the Yahoo! group, it's easier to post pictures, follow threads, or browse at random on this site.
FWIW - I have enjoyed the informality of frisco.org, vis-a-vis no need for officers, dues, a complex set of by-laws and such. Furthermore, the vBulletin software (is that the right word, Mike?) makes things quite easy. My wife is a Walt Disney World fanatic (I think this summer will be Trip #11 for us) and she prefers a WDW board that uses the same software. Ultimately I can't remember the last time I checked the Yahoo! Frisco group but it's nothing personal. I also belong to the Steam Era Freight Cars group but I just find them klunky for lack of a better word. We frisco.org'ers are blessed (another tip of the hat to you, Mike Corley, for your initiative!) Best Regards,
