Leprosy Mailing List – March 21st, 2008
Ref.: Note for the Record, Hyderabad, 2 February 2008
From: Deepak S., Bologna Italy
Dear All,
Dr P. Narasimha Rao and Dr R. Ganapati proposed to Dr Salvatore Noto to organise a meeting of Leprosy Mailing List (LML) during the 17th International Leprosy Congress held in Hyderabad (India) from 31 January to 4 February 2008. Once a number of persons expressed interest in the basic idea of an evening informal meeting-cum-dinner, Dr Narasimha Rao organised everything. The issues that came up during this meeting included the following:
Beginning of LML Salvatore explained that after his return from Mozambique (end 1999), a group of friends had some question about leprosy and they wrote to Ben Naafs for advice. It worked so they felt that it could be useful to continue it as emails can be useful medium to reach to people. The number of persons joining LML rose slowly, mainly by word of mouth publicity. Right now it goes to about 600 email addresses but almost 60 messages bounce back so this means that there are some dead addresses as well. Some email servers take these messages as spam and refuse them.
The initiative is done all as volunteer level and the basic formula of the mailing list has remained unchanged from the beginning except that from 2003 onwards the archives are there on the AIFO webpage and are done by Sunil. The list includes addresses from most of endemic countries.
Improving the archives Archives are only accessible according to the date and not according to topic or author. There is no search facility in the archives yet. Sunil explained that archives are also maintained at a volunteer level and there are no funds to invest in the improvement of the web page. He asked if there are persons who have some skills with managing webpages and can help with improving the archives of LML, they should contact him or Salvatore. It was suggested that pictures should not be circulated in LML as they make files heavier and these can be put only on the website.
Promoting discussions on specific issues There was a suggestion that LML should promote discussions on specific issues as this would lead to a more complete understanding of a subject, otherwise messages keep on changing subjects and leaving some subjects halfway. Others argued that the best thing about LML is its simplicity and liberty of persons to choose what they wish to discuss. Salvatore explained that some times on important issues he gets no discussion and on other messages that do not seem very interesting, there is lot of debate.
Importance of LML Most persons agreed that LML has made it much easier to get updates on new strategies, policies, etc. as WHO, PAHO, ILEP etc. can disseminate their news very quickly. Salvatore explained that it is important that everyone feels welcome in the list so sometimes if the message is making personal comments, he can ask authors to make some changes but otherwise he does not interfere and he reassured that there is no policy of censoring anything. Usually messages asking for practical information get priority.
He advised that if you have sent a message and it has not been circulated in the LML, remind him about it and there is no hidden motive behind not sharing any message.
The meeting concluded with a thanks to all participants and a special thank to Dr Narasimha for the organisation of the meeting.
Dr. Sunil Deepak
