Talk:Dead Runners Society

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An administrator has proposed the deletion of this article with the somewhat cryptic comment "nn mailing list."

Is there a general prohibition against entries for mailing lists? Even if there is, the entry merits inclusion due to the historic importance of Dead Runners Society (DRS) as an early example of virtual community. For 17 years, DRS has a key resource for runners. It has played a significant role in the growth and development of the sport of running. Among its members are leading runners, editors and researchers. A Google search on "dead runners society" yields 17,400 hits.

[edit] Hi guys!

So here we have an interesting conundrum. There's the mailing list that a lot of people are on and find very helpful. But wikipedia policies require some kind of "attribution", a pointer to outside information that verifies what the article says. The best verification for the existence of the DRS mailing list, it's size, age and scope is the archives of the DRS list itself. But people can't get in to see the archives unless they sign on to the list. When they do that then they are self-describing since they are now participants!

Or, we could do a telephone interview of a few DRS members. We would have to get the interviews (or our article produced as a result of the interviews) published in a newspaper or book.

So, we've got a few hundred people who are on the list, we have archives that can only be seen by list members, and we have the need for publication in some kind of dead-tree medium in order to establish the fact that a mailing list exists??

This wiki-world is a wierd place! 129.19.6.125 21:38, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] DRS Exists

The matter has now been settled. The Nexis database lists over 500 newspaper articles about DRS. One has been added to the references section. So has a book that makes extensive reference to DRS. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 74.12.89.10 (talk) 02:52, 13 March 2007 (UTC).