[CAUT] New Format--yuck

[Jeannie Grassi]

I contend that there needs to be different styles or formats for different purposes.  I think this is an example of one size doesn't fit all.  I hear many of you saying (and I agree) that regular email is more efficient and simpler.  
The new format works for meeting and greeting new people, but not for efficient communication.  

jeannie


On Mar 7, 2011, at 8:34 AM, Fred Sturm wrote:

> On Mar 7, 2011, at 8:31 AM, David Love wrote:
> 
>> I'm sure that the move to do this was well intended but in terms of my
>> participation, I can see this has just added enough unnecessary steps to
>> make it questionable as to whether it's worth the trouble.  It's certainly
>> less expedient and that may be enough to push me out of active
>> participation.  If that was the intention, to make it just that much more
>> difficult to try and remove some of the chatty garbage that tends to clog
>> the lists then I would say it's a success.  But if the idea is to encourage
>> participation by making it easier, then so far it's a failure.
> 
> 
> 	I don't know anything about interfacing with this using PDA, but I have found, through a good bit of fooling around to learn the ropes, that with a laptop it isn't so bad. Certainly different, and not as convenient, but I am happy to put up with that extra bit of work in exchange for all the positives. (Maybe the confusion about where posts come from is due to the PDA notification as opposed to the text option I use - it is easy to see the difference by the heading showing where the post came from: caut vs. noreply at egroups).
> 	We are used to a listserv, with instant communication in a fairly chatty format. We have two lists, each of which is pretty general in content. Topics ebb and flow, threads last a while and die. Participation is essentially dominated by maybe 20 people on each list. Lots and lots of people try them and find them far too time-consuming to participate in, keep up with.
> 	The format of more focused discussion groups ("communities") has the potential of keeping threads alive for longer,going into topics in more depth with less repetition, getting more participation from a variety of people. They offer the opportunity to post files, once and for all, for anyone to search and use (no more posts asking someone or other to give yet for the umpteenth time a spreadsheet for X). The archives become that much more easily searchable.
> 	I, for one, will abandon the listserv quite happily. It will be quite different, but change isn't always a bad thing.
> Regards,
> Fred Sturm
> fssturm at unm.edu
> “Art is not a mirror held up to reality, but a hammer with which to shape it.” Brecht
> 

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