Years ago we started using the hashtag #OpenSpaceTech for social media posts about OST. We could certainly go back to that and perhaps someone more tech wavy than I could build a feed onto the Open Space World website or at least link to uses of that hashtag elsewhere. That website already has a link to all the photos on Flickr with that tag.

I once worked on an intragenerational community project. The community organizer who is running the project used 14 different methods to keep the group together. The group was a mix of youth adults and seniors and they used everything from Snapchat to Facebook to Twitter to email to texts and even sent out information by snail mail. She spent a huge amount of her time trying to knit everybody together across these platforms and she did a great job doing it.

I’ve been fond of saying lately that we’ve never been more connected, and we’ve felt further apart. It is hard to convene people in asynchronous conversations these days in any form.

Chris.

On Feb 8, 2025, at 5:50 PM, Cari via OSList <everyone@oslist.org> wrote:

Thanks for this clarity Peggy and everyone

I think there needs to simply be a 'what are we seeking' answer that would then give the best direction as to 'where it belongs'.

Yes there are many many options of social media sources that we can rate by effectiveness but also corrosiveness that can narrow things down

BUT to begin what is the purpose of the email list?

To inform - to educate - to connect etc ...

If we have a good understanding of what everyone seeks from this list and connection it would give us a better direction as to where it is best placed

IMHO

my heart walks with yours,

CARI TAYLORAuthor: One Living System, Life’s sacred language and our collective journey.

Voice for Life: Living Systems education

Counsellor and Consultant: health and wellbeing for People, Planet, Place and the padfoot, wings and claws who roam ...

One Living System

Web: www.cari-taylor.com

Substack: https://onelivingsystem.substack.com/

Insight Timer: https://insighttimer.com/cari.

Recognising the elders past present and emerging of the Kaurna people whose unceded country I work, live and play on. Respecting the land of 'so called Australia' as always was always will be First Nations land.
Acknowledging diversity and equity in justice for the LGBTIQ+ community

On Sun, Feb 9, 2025 at 9:22 AM douglasgermann via OSList <everyone@oslist.org> wrote:

I too cannot use Facebook. From what I see in various places, it seems it is becoming toxic.

:- Doug. Germann

(One of the old ones)

On Saturday, February 8th, 2025 at 1:34 PM, Peggy Holman via OSList <everyone@oslist.org> wrote:

Hi all,

On January 30, Juan Luis posed a question on why he doesn’t see messages he sends to the OS list and why some replies come just to him and some go to the OSlist. It eventually wandered into a conversation off the list. It also moved into a conversation about who participates on the list. Some of both these themes seemed important to bring back to the list.

I’ve captured highlights of the conversation and, after checking with the conversation participants, the whole message thread below is for any who want the read the full exchange.

I am bringing this conversation back to the list mainly because of a question that surfaced for me:

How do we attract a mix of ages into the conversation that the OSlist currently supports?

By age, I mean primarily chronological age but also experience with Open Space. My perception is that participants who post on OSlist are predominantly older (over 50). As the recent exchange with Isaac modeled, I think our community is most vibrant when a mix of ages are in the conversation. (I don’t actually know how old Isaac is! I’m making an assumption that he is under 50.)

Julius, who is 31 and says he is not typical for his age in his technology use, offered this suggestion:

Let's not expect to attract more people through changing platforms. Let's do what serves us best and trust that with the help of bumblebees and butterflies, things will go a good way? :)

Julius may have the simplest solution. Still, I wonder if it is possible to keep the OSlist AND create a distribution mechanism so that people can choose the platform through which they receive and send OSlist messages?

What are your thoughts?

Appreciatively,

Peggy

P.S. To my fellow off-list conversation partners: If I’ve missed something you think important, please bring it up!!

HIGHLIGHTS from the off-list exchange (bolding from me)

How our email platform works

• From Harold

• the OSList *does* send emails to the sender...Blocking the sender from receiving their own email...is a "feature" of Google's GMail and some other email vendors….This issue is not being caused by the OSList software (which is open source GNU Mailman 3.0)… I do believe email can be a freer communication technology more in the spirit of Open Space than the more "reliable" vendor solutions like Facebook, Slack, etc. I know people are talking about this, and I do see value in 2 Feet experiments. But hopefully we won't give up on email.

• From Magdalena

• I for one can't use Facebook...something to do with the technology on their end…. Slack opens up too many other file and space possibilities that are overwhelming to a relative digital dinosaur like me

• From Thomas

• ...when I get an email from the oslist and click respond, I have to check that it is addressed to the oslist before sending it off...in my email program (Outlook) **it is addressed to the person who wrote it not the oslist...**So check before sending.

• From Harold

• ….seeing emails from other people not getting posted to the OSList. There are a few possibilities:> 1. As Thomas Herrmann said, if people reply to you, they may not be copying the OSList. Of course then it would not go through.

  2. If the email is too large (larger than a megabyte) it will go to moderation and not go through. The sender will get a message about this.
  3. If there are too many recipients (more than 10), it will go to moderation and not go through. The sender will also get a message about this.

Attracting younger people to the list...

• From Peggy

• ...we attract fewer young people to the list because they use email less. So I hope we can find a way to bridge to whatever platform(s) they are using...wouldn’t it be great if there were a distribution mechanism so that people can choose the platform where they receive OSlist messages?

• From Harold

• I know of no open source solution that could provide email AND some other more controlled delivery system at this point. The closed source solutions are very susceptible to external control that are not in alignment (in my view) with Open Space.

• If we do what you suggest at this point, we're giving the control of the content of our platform to one private corporation or another. It may seem convenient, but I do believe there is a very robust dialog emerging around how we can have security and privacy and also freedom of speech. Simple email is not perfect, and it's pretty low tech, but email is still the best tech for this.

• As someone working with computers since 1978, what I am seeing is that, email, a foundational basic communication technology, is under assault and it's not being protected by the big technology gate keepers. If more of us users would grow our education, my own sense is that fewer of us would trust Google, Facebook, Microsoft and even Apple and the emerging solutions would gain more adoption. There are new players emerging that are serving those seeing these issues. I can recommend ProtonMail and do my best to defend continuing with the Open Source GNU Mail platform, but not everyone is ready to look at this issue fully.

• Hopefully these conversations will motivate more dialog and more education.

• That's not to say people shouldn't play with other closed source solutions. I'm just not seeing them as the best path for our community.

• From Julius (note: I encourage reading all of Julius’ message below (in bold))

• ...I am 31 and probably part of the generation, the OSList members would consider "young”…

• I believe finding platforms that suit all generations is not feasible and it makes more sense to leave it to the greater intelligence to enable community and knowledge transfer despite of all the diversification.

• Let's not expect to attract more people through changing platforms. Let's do what serves us best and trust that with the help of bumblebees and butterflies, things will go a good way? :)

THE ORIGINAL EXCHANGE (I think I caught all of the messages…)

On Feb 6, 2025, at 4:49 PM, Harold Shinsato <harold@shinsato.com> wrote:

Hi Juan Luis,

My apology for the late reply.

It is important to get to the source cause. No need to apologize. But I do need to see the specific case. Only then I can see what is happening and have a chance at addressing the issue.

I do seem to have missed the issue that you made clear in your last note. I apologize for missing that you are seeing emails from other people not getting posted to the OSList. There are a few possibilities:

1. As Thomas Herrmann said, if people reply to you, they may not be copying the OSList. Of course then it would not go through.
2. If the email is too large (larger than a megabyte) it will go to moderation and not go through. The sender will get a message about this.
3. If there are too many recipients (more than 10), it will go to moderation and not go through. The sender will also get a message about this. I notice 11 people are involved in this dialog - and that may be the most likely cause.

Something else could also be going on. I need someone to forward me the specific email that did not go through (forwarded as an attachment so I can see the email headers.)

Harold

On Feb 5, 2025, at 11:58 PM, Thomas Herrmann <thomas@openspaceconsulting.com> wrote:

Yes I recognize this topic and as I understand it, when I get an email from the oslist and click respond, I have to check that it is addressed to the oslist before sending it off. It happens in my email program (Outlook) that it is addressed to the person who wrote it and not the oslist. Then of course it does not go to the oslist.

So check before sending is my advice. My non-techie understanding is that it may have to do with our emailprogram making choices 😊

Cheers

Thomas

On 2/5/25 4:05 PM, juanluiswalker@gmail.com wrote:

Dear Harold,

Product of this exchange, I´m very happy to know that my messages are received effectively in the OSlist, but my doubt know is why some persons respond to that but it doesn't appears in the OSlist and only goes to my Inbox of my Gmail?

Sorry about my insistence,

Juan Luis

Begin forwarded message:

From: Peggy Holman <peggy@peggyholman.com>

Subject: Re: I want to receive feedback

Date: February 2, 2025 at 10:31:32 AM PST

To: Julius Tacha <julius.tacha@posteo.at>

Cc: Harold Shinsato <harold@shinsato.com>, Magdalena Valderrama Hurwitz <magdalenavh@gmail.com>, juanluiswalker@gmail.com, Anna Caroline Türk <annacaroline@truthcircles.com>, marc@likebreathin.com, tgb417@gmail.com, Funda Oral <fundaoral@gmail.com>, isaac a <isaac48@hotmail.com>

Thank you for speaking up Julius. I value hearing your perspective. And always appreciate what Harold brings to the conversation.

I’m sorry this exchange isn’t happening on the OSlist. I’d like to move it there by forwarding this message thread with an introduction that summarizes the challenges Harold raises, Julius’ perspective on younger people (for me, that is under age 50), and the dilemma of losing people who don’t use email.

Does anyone have an issue with my doing that?

Appreciatively,
Peggy

On Feb 2, 2025, at 10:28 AM, Julius Tacha <julius.tacha@posteo.at> wrote:
I forgot Harold in my reply. Here again for all including Harold.

Also thank you for your last contribution. I whole heartedly agree. :)

--- my original message ---

**Dear Juan Luis, dear all,

concerning your P.S.:
Yes, in my case this was because I just replied to you and not the whole list. I guess it was the same with the others, since I didn't receive theirs. Anna Caroline's I received, as it was sent to the list. So everything working as intended in that regard, I suppose.

With regard to your question:
Do you use a mail client on a desktop computer, an app on your smartphone or the webmail solution in a browser?
Maybe having a locally stored email program like Thunderbird would solve the problem? I would assume it can save your outgoing emails in a "Sent" folder independently on whether the email providers show it in your webmail.

On platforms in general and Peggy's hypothesis:
I don't know whether it is the technology that is the reason for few(er) young people ending up in the folds of the Open Space Facilitation community.
I don't know who you are referring to when you say "young". I am 31 and probably part of the generation, the OSList members would consider "young". But then technoligy-vise I don't behave "young". I'm not on Facebook. Neither on Whatsapp, Instagram, or TikTok. The latter don't enable more in-depth exchange anyway. So I am happy to miss out and trust, that the relevant information from my peers still finds me.
For activism and newsletters Telegram and Signal are the platforms where a lot of self-organization is happening. Less than on Whatsapp I guess, but still a critical mass of people. You could say that a meetibg of generations is happening there, but also it is not furthering focus and presence so much.

However:
I do not consider myself member of the young generation. The platforms young people use, change every few years and using your own kind of platform - the one your parent's generation won't be on - might be just a deliberate choice. I believe finding platforms that suit all generations is not feasible and it makes more sense to leave it to the greater intelligence to enable community and knowledge transfer despite of all the diversification.

So what I am trying to say is:
Let's not expect to attract more people through changing platforms. Let's do what serves us best and trust that with the help of bumblebees and butterflies, things will go a good way? :)

Okay, sorry for rambling.

Wish you all a sweet evening. :)

Julius**
Am 02.02.2025 19:17 schrieb Harold Shinsato:

Hi Peggy,
I do understand the appeal and the need. I know of no open source
solution that could provide email AND some other more controlled
delivery system at this point. The closed source solutions are very
susceptible to external control that are not in alignment (in my view)
with Open Space.
If we do what you suggest at this point, we're giving the control of
the content of our platform to one private corporation or another. It
may seem convenient, but I do believe there is a very robust dialog
emerging around how we can have security and privacy and also freedom
of speech. Simple email is not perfect, and it's pretty low tech, but
email is still the best tech for this.
As someone working with computers since 1978, what I am seeing is
that, email, a foundational basic communication technology, is under
assault and it's not being protected by the big technology gate
keepers. If more of us users would grow our education, my own sense is
that fewer of us would trust Google, Facebook, Microsoft and even
Apple and the emerging solutions would gain more adoption. There are
new players emerging that are serving those seeing these issues. I can
recommend ProtonMail and do my best to defend continuing with the Open
Source GNU Mail platform, but not everyone is ready to look at this
issue fully.
Hopefully these conversations will motivate more dialog and more
education.
That's not to say people shouldn't play with other closed source
solutions. I'm just not seeing them as the best path for our
community.
Harold
On 2/2/25 10:34 AM, Peggy Holman wrote:

Thank you for your clarifications Harold. I remember now that you
have previously said it is Gmail that is blocking us from receiving
our own messages.
While I also hope we don’t give up on email, since the session I
co-hosted with Thomas Herrmann on during the Peace and High
Performance OS, I am aware that we attract many fewer young people
to the list because they use email less. So I hope we can find a way
to bridge to whatever platform(s) they are using.
To both your comments and Magdalena’s comments, wouldn’t it be
great if there were a distribution mechanism so that people can
choose the platform where they receive OSlist messages?
Peggy
On Feb 1, 2025, at 5:25 PM, Magdalena Valderrama Hurwitz
<magdalenavh@gmail.com> wrote:
Thanks for these details, Harold.
Folks, I for one can't use Facebook because they have shut me out of
my own account--something to do with the technology on their end
because I still get notifications! And I don't want to start another
fB account. Slack opens up too many other file and space
possibilities that are overwhelming to a relative digital dinosaur
like me. We use it at work and I'm the Slack athlete there, hahaha.
May I suggest for Juan Luis that the next time he sends out an
email, the moment that one person answers him, he replies within the
thread and copies and pastes his original email in at the bottom?
Then whoever answers next in line the original will always be
available for reference?
On Sat, Feb 1, 2025, 3:39 PM Harold Shinsato <harold@shinsato.com>
wrote:
Hi Peggy,
Actually, the OSList *does* send emails to the sender.
Blocking the sender from receiving their own email out to
"Listserv" style lists is a "feature" of Google's GMail and some
other email vendors. It was one of the reasons I stopped using
GMail. This issue is not being caused by the OSList software (which
is open source GNU Mailman 3.0, no longer Listserv which was closed
source and much more expensive).
Since the OSList is not blocking senders from getting their own
emails, there's nothing the OSList can do about it either (other
than recommend people find another email system). Juan Luis and I
have had email conversations about this as well as in person
conversations in Istanbul.
Email vendor policies are causing much worse problems. Quite a few
email vendors are blocking OSList emails entirely. We had this issue
with GMail in the past, but we seem to have gotten past it with
GMail at least. Hopefully that issue won't return.
Sadly, I only see this getting worse with email. It's just too easy
for people to falsely accuse the OSList of being spam. But I do
believe email can be a freer communication technology more in the
spirit of Open Space than the more "reliable" vendor solutions like
Facebook, Slack, etc. I know people are talking about this, and I do
see value in 2 Feet experiments. But hopefully we won't give up on
email.
Harold
On 2/1/25 1:49 PM, Peggy Holman wrote:
Juan Luis,
Harold Shinsato can probably give the most definitive answers. I
added him to the cc.
Something about how our listserv works is that we don’t receive
the messages we send. I assume that is why you don’t see your
messages in your OSlist folder on Outlook. I copy mine into my
OSlist folder since I know that to be the case. It probably changed
for you when Harold did some work a few years back to deal with spam
problems.
I’m guessing the messages you received that went to your OSlist
folder were addressed to everyone@oslist.org. I notice mine was just
sent to your personal email address.
Warmly,
Peggy
On Jan 31, 2025, at 3:42 PM, isaac a <isaac48@hotmail.com> wrote:
Unfortunately I don't really know how it works. Sorry.
Isaac

FROM: juanluiswalker@gmail.com <juanluiswalker@gmail.com>
SENT: 31 January 2025 19:23
TO: annacaroline@truthcircles.com <annacaroline@truthcircles.com>;
marc@likebreathin.com <marc@likebreathin.com>; peggy@peggyholman.com
<peggy@peggyholman.com>; tgb417@gmail.com <tgb417@gmail.com>;
fundaoral@gmail.com<fundaoral@gmail.com>; julius.tacha@posteo.at
<julius.tacha@posteo.at>; isaac48@hotmail.com <isaac48@hotmail.com>;
magdalenavh@gmail.com <magdalenavh@gmail.com>
SUBJECT: RE: I want to receive feedback
Thank you very much my dear friends for your responses and I'm glad
to know that my messages can be seen in the Oslist.
The doubt that remains with me is why I dont see in my folder of the
Oslist in Outlook the messages that I have sent . I remember that in
the past all the messages that I have sent appears inmediatly in
that folder .
Can you give me some reasons of why this occurs?
Thanks in advance.
With love,
Juan Luis
PS: From the eight persons that here I'm writing directly now, and
that till the moment are the ones had give me answer to my inquiry,
only the one of Anna Caroline I have received in my Oslist folder
and all the others has went directly to my Inbox of my personal
email: juanluiswalker@gmail.com
[1]
Libre de virus.www.avast.com [1]

--
Harold Shinsato
harold@shinsato.com
https://shinsato.com [2]

Harold Shinsato
harold@shinsato.com
https://shinsato.com [3]
Links:

[1]
https://www.avast.com/sig-email?utm_medium=email&amp;utm_source=link&amp;utm_campaign=sig-email&amp;utm_content=emailclient
[2] https://shinsato.com/
[3] https://shinsato.com

OSList mailing list -- everyone@oslist.org
To unsubscribe send an email to everyone-leave@oslist.org
See the archives here: https://oslist.org/empathy/list/everyone.oslist.org

OSList mailing list -- everyone@oslist.org
To unsubscribe send an email to everyone-leave@oslist.org
See the archives here: https://oslist.org/empathy/list/everyone.oslist.org

Hello Listers,Thank you to Peggy for the consolidation of the exchange.

My two cents:

I agree with Julius. The devil is not in the platform. And with all who have expressed doubt about moving towards restricted proprietary platforms. Sure, if someone figures out a hack that will route their email notifications from the List to Telegram, why not? But I think the root cause of the “mainly over 50”-problem is the age profile of practitioners in general.

Maybe we should advertise the List a little more insistently during trainings? But isn’t the list in its current configuration simply serving OST in its most basic whoever comes-form?

I would be interested to hear from the under-50 set why they are not here. If anyone knows any such practitioners, maybe you could ask them so we can see if technology is actually an issue.

Fondly,

Ian

Sent from my iPhone

On 9 Feb 2025, at 02:50, Cari via OSList <everyone@oslist.org> wrote:

Thanks for this clarity Peggy and everyone

I think there needs to simply be a 'what are we seeking' answer that would then give the best direction as to 'where it belongs'.

Yes there are many many options of social media sources that we can rate by effectiveness but also corrosiveness that can narrow things down

BUT to begin what is the purpose of the email list?

To inform - to educate - to connect etc ...

If we have a good understanding of what everyone seeks from this list and connection it would give us a better direction as to where it is best placed

IMHO

my heart walks with yours,

CARI TAYLORAuthor: One Living System, Life’s sacred language and our collective journey.

Voice for Life: Living Systems education

Counsellor and Consultant: health and wellbeing for People, Planet, Place and the padfoot, wings and claws who roam ...

One Living System

Web: www.cari-taylor.com

Substack: https://onelivingsystem.substack.com/

Insight Timer: https://insighttimer.com/cari.

Recognising the elders past present and emerging of the Kaurna people whose unceded country I work, live and play on. Respecting the land of 'so called Australia' as always was always will be First Nations land.
Acknowledging diversity and equity in justice for the LGBTIQ+ community

On Sun, Feb 9, 2025 at 9:22 AM douglasgermann via OSList <everyone@oslist.org> wrote:

I too cannot use Facebook. From what I see in various places, it seems it is becoming toxic.

:- Doug. Germann

(One of the old ones)

On Saturday, February 8th, 2025 at 1:34 PM, Peggy Holman via OSList <everyone@oslist.org> wrote:

Hi all,

On January 30, Juan Luis posed a question on why he doesn’t see messages he sends to the OS list and why some replies come just to him and some go to the OSlist. It eventually wandered into a conversation off the list. It also moved into a conversation about who participates on the list. Some of both these themes seemed important to bring back to the list.

I’ve captured highlights of the conversation and, after checking with the conversation participants, the whole message thread below is for any who want the read the full exchange.

I am bringing this conversation back to the list mainly because of a question that surfaced for me:

How do we attract a mix of ages into the conversation that the OSlist currently supports?

By age, I mean primarily chronological age but also experience with Open Space. My perception is that participants who post on OSlist are predominantly older (over 50). As the recent exchange with Isaac modeled, I think our community is most vibrant when a mix of ages are in the conversation. (I don’t actually know how old Isaac is! I’m making an assumption that he is under 50.)

Julius, who is 31 and says he is not typical for his age in his technology use, offered this suggestion:

Let's not expect to attract more people through changing platforms. Let's do what serves us best and trust that with the help of bumblebees and butterflies, things will go a good way? :)

Julius may have the simplest solution. Still, I wonder if it is possible to keep the OSlist AND create a distribution mechanism so that people can choose the platform through which they receive and send OSlist messages?

What are your thoughts?

Appreciatively,

Peggy

P.S. To my fellow off-list conversation partners: If I’ve missed something you think important, please bring it up!!

HIGHLIGHTS from the off-list exchange (bolding from me)

How our email platform works

• From Harold

• the OSList *does* send emails to the sender...Blocking the sender from receiving their own email...is a "feature" of Google's GMail and some other email vendors….This issue is not being caused by the OSList software (which is open source GNU Mailman 3.0)… I do believe email can be a freer communication technology more in the spirit of Open Space than the more "reliable" vendor solutions like Facebook, Slack, etc. I know people are talking about this, and I do see value in 2 Feet experiments. But hopefully we won't give up on email.

• From Magdalena

• I for one can't use Facebook...something to do with the technology on their end…. Slack opens up too many other file and space possibilities that are overwhelming to a relative digital dinosaur like me

• From Thomas

• ...when I get an email from the oslist and click respond, I have to check that it is addressed to the oslist before sending it off...in my email program (Outlook) **it is addressed to the person who wrote it not the oslist...**So check before sending.

• From Harold

• ….seeing emails from other people not getting posted to the OSList. There are a few possibilities:> 1. As Thomas Herrmann said, if people reply to you, they may not be copying the OSList. Of course then it would not go through.

  2. If the email is too large (larger than a megabyte) it will go to moderation and not go through. The sender will get a message about this.
  3. If there are too many recipients (more than 10), it will go to moderation and not go through. The sender will also get a message about this.

Attracting younger people to the list...

• From Peggy

• ...we attract fewer young people to the list because they use email less. So I hope we can find a way to bridge to whatever platform(s) they are using...wouldn’t it be great if there were a distribution mechanism so that people can choose the platform where they receive OSlist messages?

• From Harold

• I know of no open source solution that could provide email AND some other more controlled delivery system at this point. The closed source solutions are very susceptible to external control that are not in alignment (in my view) with Open Space.

• If we do what you suggest at this point, we're giving the control of the content of our platform to one private corporation or another. It may seem convenient, but I do believe there is a very robust dialog emerging around how we can have security and privacy and also freedom of speech. Simple email is not perfect, and it's pretty low tech, but email is still the best tech for this.

• As someone working with computers since 1978, what I am seeing is that, email, a foundational basic communication technology, is under assault and it's not being protected by the big technology gate keepers. If more of us users would grow our education, my own sense is that fewer of us would trust Google, Facebook, Microsoft and even Apple and the emerging solutions would gain more adoption. There are new players emerging that are serving those seeing these issues. I can recommend ProtonMail and do my best to defend continuing with the Open Source GNU Mail platform, but not everyone is ready to look at this issue fully.

• Hopefully these conversations will motivate more dialog and more education.

• That's not to say people shouldn't play with other closed source solutions. I'm just not seeing them as the best path for our community.

• From Julius (note: I encourage reading all of Julius’ message below (in bold))

• ...I am 31 and probably part of the generation, the OSList members would consider "young”…

• I believe finding platforms that suit all generations is not feasible and it makes more sense to leave it to the greater intelligence to enable community and knowledge transfer despite of all the diversification.

• Let's not expect to attract more people through changing platforms. Let's do what serves us best and trust that with the help of bumblebees and butterflies, things will go a good way? :)

THE ORIGINAL EXCHANGE (I think I caught all of the messages…)

On Feb 6, 2025, at 4:49 PM, Harold Shinsato <harold@shinsato.com> wrote:

Hi Juan Luis,

My apology for the late reply.

It is important to get to the source cause. No need to apologize. But I do need to see the specific case. Only then I can see what is happening and have a chance at addressing the issue.

I do seem to have missed the issue that you made clear in your last note. I apologize for missing that you are seeing emails from other people not getting posted to the OSList. There are a few possibilities:

1. As Thomas Herrmann said, if people reply to you, they may not be copying the OSList. Of course then it would not go through.
2. If the email is too large (larger than a megabyte) it will go to moderation and not go through. The sender will get a message about this.
3. If there are too many recipients (more than 10), it will go to moderation and not go through. The sender will also get a message about this. I notice 11 people are involved in this dialog - and that may be the most likely cause.

Something else could also be going on. I need someone to forward me the specific email that did not go through (forwarded as an attachment so I can see the email headers.)

Harold

On Feb 5, 2025, at 11:58 PM, Thomas Herrmann <thomas@openspaceconsulting.com> wrote:

Yes I recognize this topic and as I understand it, when I get an email from the oslist and click respond, I have to check that it is addressed to the oslist before sending it off. It happens in my email program (Outlook) that it is addressed to the person who wrote it and not the oslist. Then of course it does not go to the oslist.

So check before sending is my advice. My non-techie understanding is that it may have to do with our emailprogram making choices 😊

Cheers

Thomas

On 2/5/25 4:05 PM, juanluiswalker@gmail.com wrote:

Dear Harold,

Product of this exchange, I´m very happy to know that my messages are received effectively in the OSlist, but my doubt know is why some persons respond to that but it doesn't appears in the OSlist and only goes to my Inbox of my Gmail?

Sorry about my insistence,

Juan Luis

Begin forwarded message:

From: Peggy Holman <peggy@peggyholman.com>

Subject: Re: I want to receive feedback

Date: February 2, 2025 at 10:31:32 AM PST

To: Julius Tacha <julius.tacha@posteo.at>

Cc: Harold Shinsato <harold@shinsato.com>, Magdalena Valderrama Hurwitz <magdalenavh@gmail.com>, juanluiswalker@gmail.com, Anna Caroline Türk <annacaroline@truthcircles.com>, marc@likebreathin.com, tgb417@gmail.com, Funda Oral <fundaoral@gmail.com>, isaac a <isaac48@hotmail.com>

Thank you for speaking up Julius. I value hearing your perspective. And always appreciate what Harold brings to the conversation.

I’m sorry this exchange isn’t happening on the OSlist. I’d like to move it there by forwarding this message thread with an introduction that summarizes the challenges Harold raises, Julius’ perspective on younger people (for me, that is under age 50), and the dilemma of losing people who don’t use email.

Does anyone have an issue with my doing that?

Appreciatively,
Peggy

On Feb 2, 2025, at 10:28 AM, Julius Tacha <julius.tacha@posteo.at> wrote:
I forgot Harold in my reply. Here again for all including Harold.

Also thank you for your last contribution. I whole heartedly agree. :)

--- my original message ---

**Dear Juan Luis, dear all,

concerning your P.S.:
Yes, in my case this was because I just replied to you and not the whole list. I guess it was the same with the others, since I didn't receive theirs. Anna Caroline's I received, as it was sent to the list. So everything working as intended in that regard, I suppose.

With regard to your question:
Do you use a mail client on a desktop computer, an app on your smartphone or the webmail solution in a browser?
Maybe having a locally stored email program like Thunderbird would solve the problem? I would assume it can save your outgoing emails in a "Sent" folder independently on whether the email providers show it in your webmail.

On platforms in general and Peggy's hypothesis:
I don't know whether it is the technology that is the reason for few(er) young people ending up in the folds of the Open Space Facilitation community.
I don't know who you are referring to when you say "young". I am 31 and probably part of the generation, the OSList members would consider "young". But then technoligy-vise I don't behave "young". I'm not on Facebook. Neither on Whatsapp, Instagram, or TikTok. The latter don't enable more in-depth exchange anyway. So I am happy to miss out and trust, that the relevant information from my peers still finds me.
For activism and newsletters Telegram and Signal are the platforms where a lot of self-organization is happening. Less than on Whatsapp I guess, but still a critical mass of people. You could say that a meetibg of generations is happening there, but also it is not furthering focus and presence so much.

However:
I do not consider myself member of the young generation. The platforms young people use, change every few years and using your own kind of platform - the one your parent's generation won't be on - might be just a deliberate choice. I believe finding platforms that suit all generations is not feasible and it makes more sense to leave it to the greater intelligence to enable community and knowledge transfer despite of all the diversification.

So what I am trying to say is:
Let's not expect to attract more people through changing platforms. Let's do what serves us best and trust that with the help of bumblebees and butterflies, things will go a good way? :)

Okay, sorry for rambling.

Wish you all a sweet evening. :)

Julius**
Am 02.02.2025 19:17 schrieb Harold Shinsato:

Hi Peggy,
I do understand the appeal and the need. I know of no open source
solution that could provide email AND some other more controlled
delivery system at this point. The closed source solutions are very
susceptible to external control that are not in alignment (in my view)
with Open Space.
If we do what you suggest at this point, we're giving the control of
the content of our platform to one private corporation or another. It
may seem convenient, but I do believe there is a very robust dialog
emerging around how we can have security and privacy and also freedom
of speech. Simple email is not perfect, and it's pretty low tech, but
email is still the best tech for this.
As someone working with computers since 1978, what I am seeing is
that, email, a foundational basic communication technology, is under
assault and it's not being protected by the big technology gate
keepers. If more of us users would grow our education, my own sense is
that fewer of us would trust Google, Facebook, Microsoft and even
Apple and the emerging solutions would gain more adoption. There are
new players emerging that are serving those seeing these issues. I can
recommend ProtonMail and do my best to defend continuing with the Open
Source GNU Mail platform, but not everyone is ready to look at this
issue fully.
Hopefully these conversations will motivate more dialog and more
education.
That's not to say people shouldn't play with other closed source
solutions. I'm just not seeing them as the best path for our
community.
Harold
On 2/2/25 10:34 AM, Peggy Holman wrote:

Thank you for your clarifications Harold. I remember now that you
have previously said it is Gmail that is blocking us from receiving
our own messages.
While I also hope we don’t give up on email, since the session I
co-hosted with Thomas Herrmann on during the Peace and High
Performance OS, I am aware that we attract many fewer young people
to the list because they use email less. So I hope we can find a way
to bridge to whatever platform(s) they are using.
To both your comments and Magdalena’s comments, wouldn’t it be
great if there were a distribution mechanism so that people can
choose the platform where they receive OSlist messages?
Peggy
On Feb 1, 2025, at 5:25 PM, Magdalena Valderrama Hurwitz
<magdalenavh@gmail.com> wrote:
Thanks for these details, Harold.
Folks, I for one can't use Facebook because they have shut me out of
my own account--something to do with the technology on their end
because I still get notifications! And I don't want to start another
fB account. Slack opens up too many other file and space
possibilities that are overwhelming to a relative digital dinosaur
like me. We use it at work and I'm the Slack athlete there, hahaha.
May I suggest for Juan Luis that the next time he sends out an
email, the moment that one person answers him, he replies within the
thread and copies and pastes his original email in at the bottom?
Then whoever answers next in line the original will always be
available for reference?
On Sat, Feb 1, 2025, 3:39 PM Harold Shinsato <harold@shinsato.com>
wrote:
Hi Peggy,
Actually, the OSList *does* send emails to the sender.
Blocking the sender from receiving their own email out to
"Listserv" style lists is a "feature" of Google's GMail and some
other email vendors. It was one of the reasons I stopped using
GMail. This issue is not being caused by the OSList software (which
is open source GNU Mailman 3.0, no longer Listserv which was closed
source and much more expensive).
Since the OSList is not blocking senders from getting their own
emails, there's nothing the OSList can do about it either (other
than recommend people find another email system). Juan Luis and I
have had email conversations about this as well as in person
conversations in Istanbul.
Email vendor policies are causing much worse problems. Quite a few
email vendors are blocking OSList emails entirely. We had this issue
with GMail in the past, but we seem to have gotten past it with
GMail at least. Hopefully that issue won't return.
Sadly, I only see this getting worse with email. It's just too easy
for people to falsely accuse the OSList of being spam. But I do
believe email can be a freer communication technology more in the
spirit of Open Space than the more "reliable" vendor solutions like
Facebook, Slack, etc. I know people are talking about this, and I do
see value in 2 Feet experiments. But hopefully we won't give up on
email.
Harold
On 2/1/25 1:49 PM, Peggy Holman wrote:
Juan Luis,
Harold Shinsato can probably give the most definitive answers. I
added him to the cc.
Something about how our listserv works is that we don’t receive
the messages we send. I assume that is why you don’t see your
messages in your OSlist folder on Outlook. I copy mine into my
OSlist folder since I know that to be the case. It probably changed
for you when Harold did some work a few years back to deal with spam
problems.
I’m guessing the messages you received that went to your OSlist
folder were addressed to everyone@oslist.org. I notice mine was just
sent to your personal email address.
Warmly,
Peggy
On Jan 31, 2025, at 3:42 PM, isaac a <isaac48@hotmail.com> wrote:
Unfortunately I don't really know how it works. Sorry.
Isaac

FROM: juanluiswalker@gmail.com <juanluiswalker@gmail.com>
SENT: 31 January 2025 19:23
TO: annacaroline@truthcircles.com <annacaroline@truthcircles.com>;
marc@likebreathin.com <marc@likebreathin.com>; peggy@peggyholman.com
<peggy@peggyholman.com>; tgb417@gmail.com <tgb417@gmail.com>;
fundaoral@gmail.com<fundaoral@gmail.com>; julius.tacha@posteo.at
<julius.tacha@posteo.at>; isaac48@hotmail.com <isaac48@hotmail.com>;
magdalenavh@gmail.com <magdalenavh@gmail.com>
SUBJECT: RE: I want to receive feedback
Thank you very much my dear friends for your responses and I'm glad
to know that my messages can be seen in the Oslist.
The doubt that remains with me is why I dont see in my folder of the
Oslist in Outlook the messages that I have sent . I remember that in
the past all the messages that I have sent appears inmediatly in
that folder .
Can you give me some reasons of why this occurs?
Thanks in advance.
With love,
Juan Luis
PS: From the eight persons that here I'm writing directly now, and
that till the moment are the ones had give me answer to my inquiry,
only the one of Anna Caroline I have received in my Oslist folder
and all the others has went directly to my Inbox of my personal
email: juanluiswalker@gmail.com
[1]
Libre de virus.www.avast.com [1]

--
Harold Shinsato
harold@shinsato.com
https://shinsato.com [2]

Harold Shinsato
harold@shinsato.com
https://shinsato.com [3]
Links:

[1]
https://www.avast.com/sig-email?utm_medium=email&amp;utm_source=link&amp;utm_campaign=sig-email&amp;utm_content=emailclient
[2] https://shinsato.com/
[3] https://shinsato.com

OSList mailing list -- everyone@oslist.org
To unsubscribe send an email to everyone-leave@oslist.org
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OSList mailing list -- everyone@oslist.org
To unsubscribe send an email to everyone-leave@oslist.org
See the archives here: https://oslist.org/empathy/list/everyone.oslist.org

Why, thanks Peggy, for assuming I'm under 50! I'll take that as a compliment.
I'm going to freestyle a little bit here, as I'm not tech savvy at all:
I've heard of a programme or platform called Hootsuite that apparently sends posts to multiple social media platforms. There must be many more such programmes and/or platforms.
I wonder if, amongst us relative oldies, we might have tech savvy sons /daughters /grandsons /granddaughters...progenies... that might want to take something like this on as a high school/college project? Maybe a group project? How to share what's happening on the list with other platforms and vice versa? A win win, with younger people at heart?Just some thoughts!
Isaac

From: Skye via OSList everyone@oslist.org
Sent: 09 February 2025 10:57
To: Michael Herman michael@michaelherman.com; Chris Corrigan chris.corrigan@gmail.com
Cc: withlovebycari@gmail.com withlovebycari@gmail.com; douglasgermann douglasgermann@proton.me; Open Space Olist everyone@oslist.org
Subject: [OSList] Re: Where are the youth? And the mysterious mechanics of OSlist (Original subject: Fwd: I want to receive feedback)

AMEN  and thank you Michael.

On Sun, Feb 9, 2025, at 1:14 AM, Michael Herman via OSList wrote:
harrison used to remind us every now and then to take our wrist watches off before stepping into the circle, lest we unconsciously glance at it while we are telling everyone that "whenever it starts is the right time."  we could be similarly careful here at what feels like the edge of "whoever comes is the right people."

years ago i opened a 4-hour, after school space for 35 young people, ages 12-22 in Racine, Wisconsin.  a couple weeks later, they ran another for themselves, with 70 kids.  a few weeks after that, having generated a bunch of things to do, they opened a third space, but started inviting parents and other helpers with cars, who they saw as necessary to advancing their work.  they soon became the largest YMCA Earth Service Corps chapter in the country (one of their emergent themes was environment).  They got in the newspaper a number of times and got a skateboard park built in the best lakefront (Lake Michigan) park right near downtown, exactly where business leaders had been trying to keep them out.  They went to a national conference and told their story.  The conference organizers cancelled a half day of the conference and asked the Racine kids to open the space for the 500+ at the conference.  After that, we know some of those folks went home and ran their own OS meetings and initiatives.

Similarly, I opened space for the 2008 Scrum Gathering in Chicago.  Three participants rode the train home together and hatched a plan to use open space to end what they'd come to call the "death march," as management was pushing them to finish a year of work in just six months.  In short, it worked brilliantly.  And then they made it a regular part of the Agile user group learning sessions they run monthly.

no doubt you have your own stories of where people saw what you did and immediately understood enough of it to go off and just do it.  this is how it's supposed to be!  it's supposed to be transparent, deeply familiar, easy to try and get some good results.  it's supposed to be able to spread around the world without a marketing budget and organizing body, without certifications and teachers.  not that trainings and listserves are bad... only that they are extra!

ultimately, the best way to open more space is to open more space.

as chris mentioned, we tried the ost hashtag, and it went nowhere.  we linked to flickr photos, but now that hashtag and collection is virtually unusable, full of junk.  when the oslist started, email was new and social media was non-existent.  today, we're awash in all of it... and it's all open space.  beautiful and horrible!  people in offices are scheduling which days they'll overlap in the office, like the office is just another corner of the room.  one of harrison's definitions of os was "when the old thing is finished or collapsing, and the new thing hasn't started yet."  by this measure, we're swimming in open space!

so one question for me is "what have we learned in the last 40 years of meeting/working in open space, that might be useful to so many people who are coming into it for the first time?"  what have we learned about calling circles and riding waves and inviting organization in the middle of what feels super chaotic?  when tibet was crushed under the weight of chinese occupation, tibetan buddhism turned outward, expanded globally in ways it never could have from inside of tibet.  if the turmoil of today's workplaces and communities is making it hard to bring people into the oslist we've always had, how do we reimagine our conversations?  maybe we shouldn't be bringing people in... how do we go out, and meet these new people, young people, whatever... wherever they are?  each of us, wherever we are.  how can we join their work, inviting and convening?  wherever it happens is the right place, after all.

open space technology was only ever a halfway solution.  maybe like a way to arrange the game board.  but the real game is transformation.  learning.  community.  spirit.  how can we remember to look for, offer and support these big games, beyond the methodology and our own cozy circle?  when i see the world churning, i don't think to myself, "i need to go check the oslist."  i start thinking about calling old clients, local colleagues, neighbors, community organizations -- looking for places to be useful.  i'm glad the list is here, just what it is and as it is.  i love that we've all been so marvelously connected, around the world and sometimes across cafe and kitchen tables for so many years.  but the game is out there!  my brother's first job out of college was selling lift trucks.  every morning at 7:30, his boss would storm through the sales guys' workspace yelling, "get out of here!  nobody here is going to buy any lift trucks!"

so more than "how do we bring others into the list, or some new platform(s), to sip our koolaid with us..." it seems to me more immediately actionable to acknowledge that we are the ones we have, maybe there's only a few of any of you still reading here now!  the right people!  <grin>  and however many will read this far... "what are the issues and opportunities for you, me, each of us and all of us, to get out more, to share the spirit of os and the oslist, wherever in the world we might be needed?"  and if some of us can come back and share some of our stories and learnings from that, whatever happens here and in the world will be the only thing that could have!  ...until it's over, or we are, or something.

m

--

Michael Herman
Michael Herman Associates
312-280-7838 (mobile)

MichaelHerman.comhttp://MichaelHerman.com
OpenSpaceWorld.orghttp://OpenSpaceWorld.org

On Sat, Feb 8, 2025 at 8:59 PM Chris Corrigan via OSList <everyone@oslist.orgmailto:everyone@oslist.org> wrote:
Years ago we started using the hashtag #OpenSpaceTech for social media posts about OST. We could certainly go back to that and perhaps someone more tech wavy than I could build a feed onto the Open Space World website or at least link to uses of that hashtag elsewhere. That website already has a link to all the photos on Flickr with that tag.

I once worked on an intragenerational community project. The community organizer who is running the project used 14 different methods to keep the group together. The group was a mix of youth adults and seniors and they used everything from Snapchat to Facebook to Twitter to email to texts and even sent out information by snail mail. She spent a huge amount of her time trying to knit everybody together across these platforms and she did a great job doing it.

I’ve been fond of saying lately that we’ve never been more connected, and we’ve felt further apart. It is hard to convene people in asynchronous conversations these days in any form.

Chris.

On Feb 8, 2025, at 5:50 PM, Cari via OSList <everyone@oslist.orgmailto:everyone@oslist.org> wrote:

Thanks for this clarity Peggy and everyone
I think there needs to simply be a 'what are we seeking' answer that would then give the best direction as to 'where it belongs'.
Yes there are many many options of social media sources that we can rate by effectiveness but also corrosiveness that can narrow things down
BUT to begin what is the purpose of the email list?
To inform - to educate - to connect etc ...
If we have a good understanding of what everyone seeks from this list and connection it would give us a better direction as to where it is best placed
IMHO

my heart walks with yours,

CARI TAYLOR

Author: One Living System, Life’s sacred language and our collective journey.

Voice for Life: Living Systems education

Counsellor and Consultant: health and wellbeing for People, Planet, Place and the padfoot, wings and claws who roam ...

One Living Systemhttps://onelivingsystem.cari-taylor.com/?v=2.1

[https://ci3.googleusercontent.com/mail-sig/AIorK4zz_L1pxWlbsXOjU4bf8tyff4fnXcXNmueZFzPVA5-Pv6oZCTJz7Poim8Dy0f_1NE9EPk8CHG_FWOvX]

Web: www.cari-taylor.com  http://www.cari-taylor.com

Substack: https://onelivingsystem.substack.com/

Insight Timer: https://insighttimer.com/cari.

[https://ci3.googleusercontent.com/mail-sig/AIorK4wQZPcU9Dz_SM0UMF1fTEy01p7nZd4mJDsJoOhFIgcan0S0I9ltcUxgAuAVLLyUhUifCb8I8L0]
Recognising the elders past present and emerging of the Kaurna people whose unceded country I work, live and play on. Respecting the land of 'so called Australia' as always was always will be First Nations land.

Acknowledging diversity and equity in justice for the LGBTIQ+ community

On Sun, Feb 9, 2025 at 9:22 AM douglasgermann via OSList <everyone@oslist.orgmailto:everyone@oslist.org> wrote:
I too cannot use Facebook. From what I see in various places, it seems it is becoming toxic.

:- Doug. Germann
(One of the old ones)
On Saturday, February 8th, 2025 at 1:34 PM, Peggy Holman via OSList <everyone@oslist.orgmailto:everyone@oslist.org> wrote:
Hi all,

On January 30, Juan Luis posed a question on why he doesn’t see messages he sends to the OS list and why some replies come just to him and some go to the OSlist. It eventually wandered into a conversation off the list. It also moved into a conversation about who participates on the list. Some of both these themes seemed important to bring back to the list.

I’ve captured highlights of the conversation and, after checking with the conversation participants, the whole message thread below is for any who want the read the full exchange.

I am bringing this conversation back to the list mainly because of a question that surfaced for me:

How do we attract a mix of ages into the conversation that the OSlist currently supports?

By age, I mean primarily chronological age but also experience with Open Space. My perception is that participants who post on OSlist are predominantly older (over 50). As the recent exchange with Isaac modeled, I think our community is most vibrant when a mix of ages are in the conversation. (I don’t actually know how old Isaac is! I’m making an assumption that he is under 50.)

Julius, who is 31 and says he is not typical for his age in his technology use, offered this suggestion:
Let's not expect to attract more people through changing platforms. Let's do what serves us best and trust that with the help of bumblebees and butterflies, things will go a good way? :)

Julius may have the simplest solution. Still, I wonder if it is possible to keep the OSlist AND create a distribution mechanism so that people can choose the platform through which they receive and send OSlist messages?

What are your thoughts?

Appreciatively,
Peggy

P.S. To my fellow off-list conversation partners: If I’ve missed something you think important, please bring it up!!

HIGHLIGHTS from the off-list exchange (bolding from me)

How our email platform works

• From Harold
  *  the OSList does send emails to the sender...Blocking the sender from receiving their own email...is a "feature" of Google's GMail and some other email vendors….This issue is not being caused by the OSList software (which is open source GNU Mailman 3.0)… I do believe email can be a freer communication technology more in the spirit of Open Space than the more "reliable" vendor solutions like Facebook, Slack, etc. I know people are talking about this, and I do see value in 2 Feet experiments. But hopefully we won't give up on email.
• From Magdalena
  *  I for one can't use Facebook...something to do with the technology on their end…. Slack opens up too many other file and space possibilities that are overwhelming to a relative digital dinosaur like me
• From Thomas
  *  ...when I get an email from the oslist and click respond, I have to check that it is addressed to the oslist before sending it off...in my email program (Outlook) it is addressed to the person who wrote it not the oslist...So check before sending.
• From Harold
  *
  ….seeing emails from other people not getting posted to the OSList. There are a few possibilities:

1. As Thomas Herrmann said, if people reply to you, they may not be copying the OSList. Of course then it would not go through.
2. If the email is too large (larger than a megabyte) it will go to moderation and not go through. The sender will get a message about this.
3. If there are too many recipients (more than 10), it will go to moderation and not go through. The sender will also get a message about this.

Attracting younger people to the list...

• From Peggy
  *  ...we attract fewer young people to the list because they use email less. So I hope we can find a way to bridge to whatever platform(s) they are using...wouldn’t it be great if there were a distribution mechanism so that people can choose the platform where they receive OSlist messages?
• From Harold
  *  I know of no open source solution that could provide email AND some other more controlled delivery system at this point. The closed source solutions are very susceptible to external control that are not in alignment (in my view) with Open Space.
  *  If we do what you suggest at this point, we're giving the control of the content of our platform to one private corporation or another. It may seem convenient, but I do believe there is a very robust dialog emerging around how we can have security and privacy and also freedom of speech. Simple email is not perfect, and it's pretty low tech, but email is still the best tech for this.
  *  As someone working with computers since 1978, what I am seeing is that, email, a foundational basic communication technology, is under assault and it's not being protected by the big technology gate keepers. If more of us users would grow our education, my own sense is that fewer of us would trust Google, Facebook, Microsoft and even Apple and the emerging solutions would gain more adoption. There are new players emerging that are serving those seeing these issues. I can recommend ProtonMail and do my best to defend continuing with the Open Source GNU Mail platform, but not everyone is ready to look at this issue fully.
  *  Hopefully these conversations will motivate more dialog and more education.
  *  That's not to say people shouldn't play with other closed source solutions. I'm just not seeing them as the best path for our community.
• From Julius (note: I encourage reading all of Julius’ message below (in bold))
  *  ...I am 31 and probably part of the generation, the OSList members would consider "young”…
  *  I believe finding platforms that suit all generations is not feasible and it makes more sense to leave it to the greater intelligence to enable community and knowledge transfer despite of all the diversification.
  *  Let's not expect to attract more people through changing platforms. Let's do what serves us best and trust that with the help of bumblebees and butterflies, things will go a good way? :)

THE ORIGINAL EXCHANGE (I think I caught all of the messages…)

On Feb 6, 2025, at 4:49 PM, Harold Shinsato <harold@shinsato.commailto:harold@shinsato.com> wrote:

Hi Juan Luis,

My apology for the late reply.

It is important to get to the source cause. No need to apologize. But I do need to see the specific case. Only then I can see what is happening and have a chance at addressing the issue.

I do seem to have missed the issue that you made clear in your last note. I apologize for missing that you are seeing emails from other people not getting posted to the OSList. There are a few possibilities:

1. As Thomas Herrmann said, if people reply to you, they may not be copying the OSList. Of course then it would not go through.
2. If the email is too large (larger than a megabyte) it will go to moderation and not go through. The sender will get a message about this.
3. If there are too many recipients (more than 10), it will go to moderation and not go through. The sender will also get a message about this. I notice 11 people are involved in this dialog - and that may be the most likely cause.

Something else could also be going on. I need someone to forward me the specific email that did not go through (forwarded as an attachment so I can see the email headers.)

Harold

On Feb 5, 2025, at 11:58 PM, Thomas Herrmann <thomas@openspaceconsulting.commailto:thomas@openspaceconsulting.com> wrote:

Yes I recognize this topic and as I understand it, when I get an email from the oslist and click respond, I have to check that it is addressed to the oslist before sending it off. It happens in my email program (Outlook) that it is addressed to the person who wrote it and not the oslist. Then of course it does not go to the oslist.
So check before sending is my advice. My non-techie understanding is that  it may have to do with our emailprogram making choices 😊
Cheers
Thomas

On 2/5/25 4:05 PM, juanluiswalker@gmail.commailto:juanluiswalker@gmail.com wrote:
Dear Harold,

Product of this exchange, I´m very happy to know that my messages are received effectively in the OSlist, but my doubt know is why some persons respond to that but it doesn't appears in the OSlist and only goes to my Inbox of my Gmail?

Sorry about my insistence,

Juan Luis

Begin forwarded message:

From: Peggy Holman <peggy@peggyholman.commailto:peggy@peggyholman.com>
Subject: Re: I want to receive feedback
Date: February 2, 2025 at 10:31:32 AM PST
To: Julius Tacha <julius.tacha@posteo.atmailto:julius.tacha@posteo.at>
Cc: Harold Shinsato <harold@shinsato.commailto:harold@shinsato.com>, Magdalena Valderrama Hurwitz <magdalenavh@gmail.commailto:magdalenavh@gmail.com>, juanluiswalker@gmail.commailto:juanluiswalker@gmail.com, Anna Caroline Türk <annacaroline@truthcircles.commailto:annacaroline@truthcircles.com>, marc@likebreathin.commailto:marc@likebreathin.com, tgb417@gmail.commailto:tgb417@gmail.com, Funda Oral <fundaoral@gmail.commailto:fundaoral@gmail.com>, isaac a <isaac48@hotmail.commailto:isaac48@hotmail.com>

Thank you for speaking up Julius. I value hearing your perspective. And always appreciate what Harold brings to the conversation.

I’m sorry this exchange isn’t happening on the OSlist. I’d like to move it there by forwarding this message thread with an introduction that summarizes the challenges Harold raises, Julius’ perspective on younger people (for me, that is under age 50), and the dilemma of losing people who don’t use email.

Does anyone have an issue with my doing that?

Appreciatively,
Peggy

On Feb 2, 2025, at 10:28 AM, Julius Tacha <julius.tacha@posteo.atmailto:julius.tacha@posteo.at> wrote:
I forgot Harold in my reply. Here again for all including Harold.

Also thank you for your last contribution. I whole heartedly agree. :)

--- my original message ---

Dear Juan Luis, dear all,

concerning your P.S.:
Yes, in my case this was because I just replied to you and not the whole list. I guess it was the same with the others, since I didn't receive theirs. Anna Caroline's I received, as it was sent to the list. So everything working as intended in that regard, I suppose.

With regard to your question:
Do you use a mail client on a desktop computer, an app on your smartphone or the webmail solution in a browser?
Maybe having a locally stored email program like Thunderbird would solve the problem? I would assume it can save your outgoing emails in a "Sent" folder independently on whether the email providers show it in your webmail.

On platforms in general and Peggy's hypothesis:
I don't know whether it is the technology that is the reason for few(er) young people ending up in the folds of the Open Space Facilitation community.
I don't know who you are referring to when you say "young". I am 31 and probably part of the generation, the OSList members would consider "young". But then technoligy-vise I don't behave "young". I'm not on Facebook. Neither on Whatsapp, Instagram, or TikTok. The latter don't enable more in-depth exchange anyway. So I am happy to miss out and trust, that the relevant information from my peers still finds me.
For activism and newsletters Telegram and Signal are the platforms where a lot of self-organization is happening. Less than on Whatsapp I guess, but still a critical mass of people. You could say that a meetibg of generations is happening there, but also it is not furthering focus and presence so much.

However:
I do not consider myself member of the young generation. The platforms young people use, change every few years and using your own kind of platform - the one your parent's generation won't be on - might be just a deliberate choice. I believe finding platforms that suit all generations is not feasible and it makes more sense to leave it to the greater intelligence to enable community and knowledge transfer despite of all the diversification.

So what I am trying to say is:
Let's not expect to attract more people through changing platforms. Let's do what serves us best and trust that with the help of bumblebees and butterflies, things will go a good way? :)

Okay, sorry for rambling.

Wish you all a sweet evening. :)

Julius
Am 02.02.2025 19:17 schrieb Harold Shinsato:
Hi Peggy,
I do understand the appeal and the need. I know of no open source
solution that could provide email AND some other more controlled
delivery system at this point. The closed source solutions are very
susceptible to external control that are not in alignment (in my view)
with Open Space.
If we do what you suggest at this point, we're giving the control of
the content of our platform to one private corporation or another. It
may seem convenient, but I do believe there is a very robust dialog
emerging around how we can have security and privacy and also freedom
of speech. Simple email is not perfect, and it's pretty low tech, but
email is still the best tech for this.
As someone working with computers since 1978, what I am seeing is
that, email, a foundational basic communication technology, is under
assault and it's not being protected by the big technology gate
keepers. If more of us users would grow our education, my own sense is
that fewer of us would trust Google, Facebook, Microsoft and even
Apple and the emerging solutions would gain more adoption. There are
new players emerging that are serving those seeing these issues. I can
recommend ProtonMail and do my best to defend continuing with the Open
Source GNU Mail platform, but not everyone is ready to look at this
issue fully.
Hopefully these conversations will motivate more dialog and more
education.
That's not to say people shouldn't play with other closed source
solutions. I'm just not seeing them as the best path for our
community.
Harold
On 2/2/25 10:34 AM, Peggy Holman wrote:
Thank you for your clarifications Harold. I remember now that you
have previously said it is Gmail that is blocking us from receiving
our own messages.
While I also hope we don’t give up on email, since the session I
co-hosted with Thomas Herrmann on during the Peace and High
Performance OS, I am aware that we attract many fewer young people
to the list because they use email less. So I hope we can find a way
to bridge to whatever platform(s) they are using.
To both your comments and Magdalena’s comments, wouldn’t it be
great if there were a distribution mechanism so that people can
choose the platform where they receive OSlist messages?
Peggy
On Feb 1, 2025, at 5:25 PM, Magdalena Valderrama Hurwitz
<magdalenavh@gmail.commailto:magdalenavh@gmail.com> wrote:
Thanks for these details, Harold.
Folks, I for one can't use Facebook because they have shut me out of
my own account--something to do with the technology on their end
because I still get notifications! And I don't want to start another
fB account. Slack opens up too many other file and space
possibilities that are overwhelming to a relative digital dinosaur
like me. We use it at work and I'm the Slack athlete there, hahaha.
May I suggest for Juan Luis that the next time he sends out an
email, the moment that one person answers him, he replies within the
thread and copies and pastes his original email in at the bottom?
Then whoever answers next in line the original will always be
available for reference?
On Sat, Feb 1, 2025, 3:39 PM Harold Shinsato <harold@shinsato.commailto:harold@shinsato.com>
wrote:
Hi Peggy,
Actually, the OSList does send emails to the sender.
Blocking the sender from receiving their own email out to
"Listserv" style lists is a "feature" of Google's GMail and some
other email vendors. It was one of the reasons I stopped using
GMail. This issue is not being caused by the OSList software (which
is open source GNU Mailman 3.0, no longer Listserv which was closed
source and much more expensive).
Since the OSList is not blocking senders from getting their own
emails, there's nothing the OSList can do about it either (other
than recommend people find another email system). Juan Luis and I
have had email conversations about this as well as in person
conversations in Istanbul.
Email vendor policies are causing much worse problems. Quite a few
email vendors are blocking OSList emails entirely. We had this issue
with GMail in the past, but we seem to have gotten past it with
GMail at least. Hopefully that issue won't return.
Sadly, I only see this getting worse with email. It's just too easy
for people to falsely accuse the OSList of being spam. But I do
believe email can be a freer communication technology more in the
spirit of Open Space than the more "reliable" vendor solutions like
Facebook, Slack, etc. I know people are talking about this, and I do
see value in 2 Feet experiments. But hopefully we won't give up on
email.
Harold
On 2/1/25 1:49 PM, Peggy Holman wrote:
Juan Luis,
Harold Shinsato can probably give the most definitive answers. I
added him to the cc.
Something about how our listserv works is that we don’t receive
the messages we send. I assume that is why you don’t see your
messages in your OSlist folder on Outlook. I copy mine into my
OSlist folder since I know that to be the case. It probably changed
for you when Harold did some work a few years back to deal with spam
problems.
I’m guessing the messages you received that went to your OSlist
folder were addressed to everyone@oslist.orgmailto:everyone@oslist.org. I notice mine was just
sent to your personal email address.
Warmly,
Peggy
On Jan 31, 2025, at 3:42 PM, isaac a <isaac48@hotmail.commailto:isaac48@hotmail.com> wrote:
Unfortunately I don't really know how it works. Sorry.
Isaac

FROM: juanluiswalker@gmail.commailto:juanluiswalker@gmail.com <juanluiswalker@gmail.commailto:juanluiswalker@gmail.com>
SENT: 31 January 2025 19:23
TO: annacaroline@truthcircles.commailto:annacaroline@truthcircles.com <annacaroline@truthcircles.commailto:annacaroline@truthcircles.com>;
marc@likebreathin.commailto:marc@likebreathin.com <marc@likebreathin.commailto:marc@likebreathin.com>; peggy@peggyholman.commailto:peggy@peggyholman.com
<peggy@peggyholman.commailto:peggy@peggyholman.com>; tgb417@gmail.commailto:tgb417@gmail.com <tgb417@gmail.commailto:tgb417@gmail.com>;
fundaoral@gmail.commailto:fundaoral@gmail.com<fundaoral@gmail.commailto:fundaoral@gmail.com>; julius.tacha@posteo.atmailto:julius.tacha@posteo.at
<julius.tacha@posteo.atmailto:julius.tacha@posteo.at>; isaac48@hotmail.commailto:isaac48@hotmail.com <isaac48@hotmail.commailto:isaac48@hotmail.com>;
magdalenavh@gmail.commailto:magdalenavh@gmail.com <magdalenavh@gmail.commailto:magdalenavh@gmail.com>
SUBJECT: RE: I want to receive feedback
Thank you very much my dear friends for your responses and I'm glad
to know that my messages can be seen in the Oslist.
The doubt that remains with me is why I dont see in my folder of the
Oslist in Outlook the messages that I have sent . I remember that in
the past all the messages that I have sent appears inmediatly in
that folder .
Can you give me some reasons of why this occurs?
Thanks in advance.
With love,
Juan Luis
PS: From the eight persons that here I'm writing directly now, and
that till the moment are the ones had give me answer to my inquiry,
only the one of Anna Caroline I have received in my Oslist folder
and all the others has went directly to my Inbox of my personal
email: juanluiswalker@gmail.commailto:juanluiswalker@gmail.com
[1]
Libre de virus.www.avast.comhttp://virus.www.avast.com [1]

Harold Shinsato
harold@shinsato.commailto:harold@shinsato.com
https://shinsato.com [2]

Harold Shinsato
harold@shinsato.commailto:harold@shinsato.com
https://shinsato.com [3]
Links:

[1]
https://www.avast.com/sig-email?utm_medium=email&utm_source=link&utm_campaign=sig-email&utm_content=emailclient
[2] https://shinsato.com/
[3] https://shinsato.com

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