welcome to the Pittsburgh I-Net discussion

["Robert D. Carlitz" <bob@giotto.info-ren.org>]

Welcome to the online discussion of a Pittsburgh
Institutional Network!  This mailing list has been
set up with initial subscriptions for everyone who
attended last week's meeting at the Heinz Endowments
and will be open to everyone interested in working
to build a community-based coalition in support of
a new Pittsburgh I-Net.  

In addition to this mailing list, a Web site will be
set up - and should be available later this week -
to house archives of the mailing list, background
materials (such as pointers to other cities' franchise
agreements, a glossary of technical terms, and white
papers relevant to the discussion) and links to other
relevant online resources.  Once the Web site is
operational, you may wish to follow the online
discussion through that mechanism.  You can unsubscribe
for the mailing list by following the instructions
sent by the majordomo robot in response to your
initial subscription request (which I entered on your
behalf).

This discussion group is yours to shape.  Please send
an initial message introducing yourself to the group
and indicating your primary concerns and interests
with regard to the proposed Institutional Network.

The City's technical consultants - Tim Krout and Julie
Moldin from Columbia Telecommunications - will be
accessible through this online discussion to answer
questions and provide resources to help us in planning
how to design, construct, administer and operate a
successful I-Net.  They will either subscribe to the
mailing list directly, or we will be able to forward
them questions which arise in the course of our discussions.

If you have materials that you would like to make available
on the Pittsburgh I-Net Web site, please send them to me,
and I'll put them online, formatting them as required.  Of
particular value would be examples from other cities,
showing how I-Nets have been financed, what groups have
participated and how they have been administered.

Standard rules of netiquette will apply to this mailing
list: be concise, and be nice;  no advertisements.  The
address for postings is
	pgh-inet@network-democracy.org
or you can use a "group reply" or "reply to all recipients"
command to respond to any message from the discussion
group, sending your reponse to all participants in the
group.  If you do a simple "reply", your response will
be sent only to the person who posted the item in question.
Use this command if you have a personal response to make,
but remember that your reponse won't be available to 
everyone on the mailing list unless pgh-inet@network-democracy.org
is in the "To:" or "Cc:" line of your outgoing message.

I'll save my own introduction for a separate message.
I'll also try to provide more details of the I-Net
architecture to which I referred at last week's meeting.
Those of you who have questions on that architecture
should ask them here to stimulate discussion;  and
those who would like to provide alternate structures
should also get their views in front of the group.

Thanks for your participation!
Bob Carlitz