[repec-help] Welcome to repec-help

[Christian Zimmermann]

Hello all,

this is the first message on repec-help, the mailing list dedicated to the 
newly created repec-help team. I have created a web page, 
http://ideas.repec.org/repec-help.html, with the list of the current 
members as well as a few links that should be useful. Any additions are 
welcome.

Some of the members have been on RePEc for a long time, others
have responded to my appeal to archive maintainers. I especially 
welcome Danielle and Stefanie, who I believe are the first female RePEc 
volunteers (beyond archive maintainers).

The goal of this team is to get more archive on board. We have a list of 
over a hundred archives that have requested archive codes, but have not 
acted for several months. For some, it may be  because they lost interest, 
but we feel that in many cases they have be intimidated by the task. We 
all know it is easy to set it up, but some people may have various issues, 
from difficulties writing a plain text file, saving with an .rdf 
extension, understanding the layout of a template, etc.

Kit Baum, who responds to email enquiries and deals with most of the 
startup archives, simply does not have the time to do all this 
correspondence. By distributing this on more shoulders, we can relieve him 
of this burden so that he can concentrate on others tasks votal to RePEc. 
And we should be able to dedicate more individualized coaching to 
new archive maintainers.

I do not expect this to be a big burden, after all we are a good sized 
group already and more may join.

This mailing list is to discuss anything related to this task. Use it to 
ask about anything that comes across during your coaching. Always respond 
to the list (not privately), so that others may learn about the solution 
to problems that arise. Several on the list are already experienced, 
others have just maintained their own archive.

Thanks for participating!


Christian Zimmermann                                     FIGUGEGL!
Department of Economics
University of Connecticut
341 Mansfield Road, Unit 1063
Storrs, CT 06269-1063
http://ideas.repec.org/zimm/   christian.zimmermann at uconn.edu
http://ideas.repec.org/e/pzi1.html