[Magdalen] Magdalen archaeology and lore--FYI

[Brian Reid]

In case anyone cares, some "where did Magdalen come from, and when?" 
information.

The Magdalen email community was created in April 2002 by Molly Wolf, 
Gillian Barr, Mary Jane Anderson, and Jim Handsfield. It ran on a 
dedicated server computer that was purchased by Molly Wolf. The server 
was registered at Roger Stokes' home in England. All of the tech and 
legal work was done by Brian Reid, but he was intentionally not part of 
the Magdalen management because he couldn't be seen as taking sides in 
the ongoing disputes about Anglican mailing list communities.

The magdalen at herberthouse.org mailing list was launched on 8 April 2002 
and announced on 10 April 2002. When Mary Jane died, Molly got drawn 
into personal issues, and Gillian into professional issues (and then 
seminary and ordination), Jim and Brian ran it. Mostly Jim. When Jim's 
wife Marcy developed a terrible and terminal illness, Brian took it over 
and has been the list administrator ever since. The server moved from 
the care of Roger Stokes in England into Brian's data center space in 
California once the chief antagonist died (no one except that person 
really cared where the server was or who ran it).

Many people contributed significant labor to Magdalen, especially Peter 
Owen.  And maybe some folks I can't remember because they contributed 
while I needed to be invisible (before our antagonist died).

I'm pretty sure I am the originator of the term "pub" for it, but 2002 
is a long time ago and my memory isn't what it used to be.