Re: [Harp-L] 20 years ago today harp-l began

[Steve Webb <swebb@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Time sure does fly. I discovered Harp-L in early 1999. I have always likened it to getting together with friends every day and just talking harp. I have learned so much here and got to know some of the best players in the world, like Mr. Paparozzi who just posted. I have yet to ask a question here that was not answered. 
Early on I was stuck on something or other. Magic Dave Therault sent me a note that said to call him. I did and he cleared it up for me. Struggled with a Led Zeppelin project and Ben Nathanson sent me a file that got me through. Ken in Ohio always helps,me figure out things. People are generous with their talents and I have always appreciated that.
I never did get as good on harmonica as I had hoped, but I did reach my goal of being a full time harp player in a band. 
When I  completely lost interest in harmonica and just about everything else in the world earlier this year, I still kept reading Harp-L almost every day. I get the posts in regular email form and skim through them, stopping to read or save posts that interest me.
How many people, I wonder, are still on the list as long or longer than myself.
Lets shoot for another 20 years.
Steve in Minn.

Sent from my iPad

On Oct 6, 2012, at 10:21 AM, chromboy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx wrote:

> Happy 20th Harp-L !!
> 
> Wow !  Thanx for posting this interesting and amazing history that we've had.
> 
> Bravo and Kudos to all the owners/workers and spah for their tireless hrs and support. RIP our friends that have left us...
> 
> I miss Mike and Doug
> 
> This is a beautiful community and let's toast to 20 more yrs!
> 
> Long live Harp-L
> 
> All the best,
> Rob Paparozzi
> 
> 
> 
> Sent from my iPhone
> 
> On Oct 6, 2012, at 8:56 AM, owner-harp-l@xxxxxxxxxx wrote:
> 
>> Here's a link to that first month and the text of the first post.  If you
>> read past the first week things begin to pick up.  There are actually more
>> than a couple of people still subscribed to harp-l who were around pretty
>> much as the list began.
>> 
>> Harp-l began as a humble student run LISTSERV hosted on the Western
>> Kentucky University computer systems.  The original listowner was Chris
>> Pierce.  When it was no longer possible for Chris to run the list we were
>> forced to find a new home, we settled at Garply systems and we were run by
>> Hugh Messenger. An interesting time and the the list was hopping.  Our
>> peak post volume occurred in this time frame.  Hugh's life changed and he
>> was no longer able to keep up with the tasks of list ownership.
>> 
>> We continued to be hosted by garply and later the entity that garply
>> became.  SPAH at the behest of Douglas Tate covered the costs of our
>> hosting.  Initially Danny Wilson and then later a team of 3 took over the
>> ownership duties.  The team of 3 included Michael Polesky, Ken Deifik and
>> I believe Robert Gaustad.  Michael quickly became the last man standing
>> and ran the list for years with the assistance of Jonas Karlsson and a
>> small team of volunteers called harp-l-workers.
>> 
>> Our Garply hosting became less reliable as the company's interests,
>> ownership  and focus shifted.  If you peruse the archives you'll notice a
>> gap.  That gap was generated by a Garply disk crash.  Michael personally
>> paid to have the disk replaced in a era when a replacement disk for a DEC
>> Alpha was close to a thousand dollars.  Years later Michael paid to have
>> the 2nd Garply disk data recovered when it was shipped to me loose in a
>> box damaging the drive.  All of the harp-l archives including the gap era
>> were recovered.  The reason they are not currently up is they have
>> formatting issues.
>> 
>>> From Garply we moved to a new host whose name currently escapes me.  We
>> did acquire the use of the name harp-l.com at that time.  Dave Gage
>> generously obtained the domain name and paid those fees for years for us. 
>> Our hosting was unreliable.  We were off line for a couple of months
>> twice.  Membership being loyal we always bounced back but it cost us. 
>> Other resources became available and harp-l has never again been as
>> prolific as it was during the Garply era.
>> 
>> I've been involved with harp-l since the WKU era.  I became involved with
>> the harp-l-workers group during the Garply era and during the middle of
>> the Michael Polesky era I was in many senses the person running harp-l. 
>> Frustrated with our hosting I teamed with Ben Nathanson another long time
>> harp-l member to find a better more reliable way to keep harp-l afloat.
>> 
>> We ended up acquiring the harp-l.org domain name and used it to test
>> hosting sites .  We got lucky and our second hosting choice, rimuhosting
>> ended up working perfectly for us.  We set up parallel lists using the 2
>> domain names.  This way we were able to beta test the new system while
>> still maintaining the old list.  We switched from our long time mail list
>> software, Majordomo, to our current system Mailman.
>> 
>> On July 30, 2004 harp-l was finally hosted on its own server with control
>> over every aspect of the system.  We own the domain names thanks to Keith
>> Graham and Dave Gage who generously allowed us to acquire them.  We are no
>> longer SPAH supported, we've been independent since the server switch.
>> 
>> So thanks to Chris Pierce our founder and each and every one of you who
>> helped along the way.  That a student run internet list started before we
>> had web browsers still exists today is more than a minor miracle. 
>> harp-l-listowner
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> http://harp-l.org/pipermail/harp-l/1992-October/date.html
>> 
>> WELCOME to all!!!
>> 
>> This listserver is for harmonica lovers/players/enthusists/and any one
>> else that is interested.
>> 
>> This is not for any one particular style of music.  I hope that
>> through this list much can be learned from all different forms of
>> harmonica playing.
>> 
>> Blues, Jazz, Swing, Folk, Country, Rock, and ALL others are welcome.
>> If you have questions or if you would like to share your ideas,
>> experience and knowledge, please feel free.
>> 
>> It will probably start out slow, but after a while I think this list
>> should work out well.
>> 
>> Thanks.
>> 
>> Good Harpin',
>> 
>> 
>> Chris Pierce
>> -------------------------------------------------------------------------
>> Chris Pierce                    |    In the Light and Sound of God
>> Gilbert Hall                    |    Dragon's Gate Kung Fu:  Ja-Kari-Do
>> 1505 Russellville Rd Rm 327     |
>> Bowling Green KY  42101-3565    |    Departments of Biology and Chemistry
>