[David Love wrote...] > I think it's too much to ask that the filters catch every small > digression. If the list needs to do some self policing I think that's > fine. [in response to an earlier post by Phil Ford...] > I hate to sound like a broken record on this subject, but this is > exactly the sort of thing that filters were designed for. I'm not sure (because I haven't asked him) but Phil probably meant personal filters done by your mail program and not overall list filters. It is really not viable for the list filters to catch digressions or posts that are light on value -- a human would have to step in and do it. So the "self-policing" done by the list is the main mechanism for improving the content. Although a "self-policing" list implies that list members speak up when they want something to change, the list content will be the highest quality if people self-police their own posts. You all know this already, but it is worth a reminder because the list is *so* much more enjoyable when we follow these guidelines: - Before sending a post, ask yourself if it should be sent to an individual instead of the entire list. Really stop and think about it. Many replies are meant for an individual, so why post them to the list? Decide if the post adds value to the discussion viewed by almost 600 people and a zillion search engines looking at our archives before posting. - Before replying to a post, edit down the quoted content. It isn't that hard, and the other 600 of us will really appreciate it. - Before replying to a post, look over the Subject line and ask yourself if you are on the same topic. If not, start a new thread. - If your post is a flame, or flamebait, if you are publically humiliating someone, or acting out of anger, then you probably should apply the "wait a day" rule and decide tomorrow if the post really needs to go out on pianotech. - If you're posting a one-liner. Something clever, but not really adding to the discussion. Or perhaps you are making fun of a spelling error. Maybe the post just says "I don't know" or "Me too". Consider just not posting it, or sending it privately at a minimum. The rest of us will be forever in your debt. - If your post is off-topic, having nothing to do with pianos, join the pianotech-ot list instead (see http://ptg.org/mailman/listinfo/pianotech-ot). All the people interested in the off-topic posts have joined that list, so why force the rest of pianotech to read them? You've been given a forum for off-topic, so use it (or use one of the thousands of lists on the Internet which are interested in the topic). Finally, to those of you who stick with pianotech, who try to be the "bigger man" and ignore the flamebait, who post interesting, piano-related articles, I want to send my heartfelt thanks. The noise on the list is annoying, but there's still a good amount of valuable content and I still learn from it. Please continue to be a model and positively influence the list culture. -andy
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