30627: Corbett (reply) 30626: Edouard (question) Haitians on list (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Felix Edouard <loveayiti@hotmail.com>

Felix says:

I have been so busy I have not had time to participate in many discussion
on list. However, it appears that over the past year or so most of the
discussions/comments come from Americans or Foreigners. I don't think
this was always the case and I know there of many Haitian and
Haitian-American list members.

Corbett replies:  Felix, I less sure than you that what you claim above is 
a fact.  There are, indeed, many Haitian and Haitian-Americans on the 
list.  But from my posting of notes, it seems to me that the list has
ALWAYS been dominated more by non-Haitians than Haitians or 
Haitian-Americans.

The list began back in 1994 with 7 people and they were all non-Haitians.
It was sometime before the first Haitians and Haitian-Americans joined.
Further, I chose way back when to make it both a moderated list and
an English-only list, and that made it more likely that fewer Haitians, at 
least, would be contributors to the list.  Actually it was only recently, 
probably no more that 3-4 years ago, if that long, that we had members on 
the list who were living in Haiti.  There wasn't adequate internet 
connectivity to allow that.

I don't write to says this is a good thing or bad thing.  I have no 
feeling about that.  But, I just doubt the fact you seem to rely on that 
there was every a preponderance of Haitians or Haitian-Americans on the 
list.

I have no idea at how either:

-- how many people are on the list
-- what their backgrounds are

For security reasons I set the list up so that it was subscribed by e-mail 
address only, and no by name, and that I have absolutely no possiblity of
accessing the list itself.  I wanted to be sure nothing like that was ever 
on my own computer in case it got hacked.  That's also why I don't save 
any of the notes after I post them, though they are archived on the
Webster U. system (however, the notes after # 12,262 are not avaialble to 
use -- I can't get the Webster webmaster to post those).

Bob Corbett
list moderator