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Egypt-net is an electronic mailing list of Egyptians and other nationals who are interested in Egypt with its rich heritage, history and culture
1985 ...
Egypt-net was conceived in June of 1985 by a small group of Egyptians who graduated from Alexandria University's Department of Computer Science, and who wished to stay in touch electronically while completing their studies in the United States.
1987 ...
Slowly but steadily, new members were invited to join Egypt-net and, by the end of 1987 Egypt-net had almost 70 members. Originally, Egypt-net adopted a broadcast protocol for its mail distribution. Each message sent to Egypt-net was immediately broadcasted to all members.
1990...
This broadcasting protocol proved to be inappropriate for a mushrooming mailing list of about 250 members. Two other protocols were suggested and tested. The first was an attempt to distribute the mailing list over a number of sites. This solution presented its own problems and had to be abandoned. The second solution was an attempt at reducing Egypt-net's traffic by giving members the choice of either remaining on the main list, or moving to a new list and receiving only a weekly classified digest. By the end of 1990, and following serious objections from Harvard's computer system staff concerning the overloading of Harvard's mailer with Egypt-net's traffic, and the digest format was implementedfollows:
Since its inception, Egypt-net members used it to exchange ideas, news, and information, as well as to voice and debate opinions on issues of common interest: social, political, religious, sportive, humorous,
trivial, etc. The volume of traffic on Egypt-net flactuates widely, but it tends to be of a reasonably high quality. In particular, some interesting joint work has occured on a number of research problems, using
Egypt-net as a communication medium. On the personal level, many people have rediscovered old friends, and made new ones through Egypt-net.
1992...
Starting in January of 1992 and following incessant flames and forgeries that surfaced on Egypt-net, a new temporary moderated version of its digest became available and continued for over 6 months.While moderation prevented many unwanted flames from reaching the moderated version of Egypt-net Digest, it failed to stop the persistent, virulent animosity between a few of Egypt-net members. In addition, the existence of a board of moderators created for the first time in Egypt-net's history as an editorial authority, was strongly objected by many members. .
Originally, the board of moderators consisted of four members but soon afterwards, it shrunk to three. Eventually, the moderation of Egypt-net digest stopped and Egypt-net returned once again to its original format of a single unmoderated daily digest..
Changing home...
In September of 1992, Egypt-net changed homes. Hosting account was offered by Dr. Hussein Badr in the State University of New York at Stony Brook, NY and Husam Kinawi became the third maintainer of Egypt-net
April of 1992, Husam Kinawi became Egypt-net's third maintainer of Egypt-net.
Moderation was over, but the search for a new formula that would subjugate flamers and hate-mongers continued. Several ideas were put forward and ended up as alternative proposed Charters for Egypt-net. A poll/voting was administered to decide whether the idea of a chartered Egypt-net was acceptable and, in case Egypt-net becomes governed by a charter, which of the proposed charter was most suitable. The results of the voting revealed that the majority of Egypt-net members agreed to be governed by a charter. Furthermore, the charter (proposed by the late Dr. Ahmed Gaddala, Felib Iskander, and Amin El-Kholy) was adopted. This is the base for the current charter
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In May 1993, Egypt-net under the above-mentioned Charter was reinstated from the State University of New York (at Stony Brook) and members who accepted that Charter were required to reactivate their memberships. At the same time, the hosting account of Egypt-net at Harvard University was phased out.
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Egypt-net was maintained by Husam Kinawi and monitored by Hany Bardissi and hosted by Hussein Badr at SUNY at Stony Brook,NY.
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1997...
The monitor, Hany Bardissi, felt the time had come to submit his resignation from his voluntary post as Egypt-net monitor, his resignation was primarily due to personal reasons as well as his desire to pass the responsibity to a new blood.
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Since that time, and for the following years, Egypt net functioned without appointed monitor and continued to be remotely maintained by Husam Kinawi..
1993...
Egypt-net's active mailing list includes over 500 members worldwide.
Tradition...
Since many of the members of Egypt-net have never seen each other, we have developed the tradition that every new member writes a short introduction of him- or herself. It is expected and hoped that new members will continue to follow and cherish this tradition..
1999...
Frequent technical problems started to face Egypt-net server, and it became apparent that the current setup is not working properly, a number of current
avid members decided that the time had come, once again, to find another home for Egypt-net.
Mr. Abdel-Hadi Bukres, took it upon himself to find a suitable home for Egypt net, and after investigating a number of
Web-based options that were available at the time, the decision has been made to choose egroups.com as the current home for Egypt net.
Mr. Bukres, decided in April of 1999, to step down from being the maintainer
of Egypt-net , he solicited volunteers from current members, and Hany Bardissi decided to take the responsibility.
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