Would you miss this list?

[Bill Ballard]

>At 11:16 AM -0500 3/23/03, David Skolnik wrote:
>The question you leave unanswered is whether you can envision a 
>repair to the problems that have driven some from the list, which 
>would leave the basic nature of the list intact?  Or do you believe 
>that what we have is the best we can hope for?

The only system wide solution, short of a moderator, would be 
Richard's suggestion of a daily limit (say, five). Unused units would 
not carry forward. You'd better believe people would learn to plan 
(budget, really) their posts. The only downside would to be the 
evening a thread showed up (genuine piano related) on which everyone 
not only their own opinion for starters, but also compelling 
follow-ups to other peoples' posts. While some people might chafe at 
such a live-wire discussion being forced to stutter along in first 
gear (a clear restraint on freedom of speech), others would be 
grateful even here for the editing imposed  by the daily limit.

It's actually a very workable idea. The server (not Andy) could 
automatically return over-the-limit posts to the senders, or it might 
not even have to. Someone who thoughtlessly sent in 26 posts one 
evening would figure out soon enough that he wouldn't see the last 
two for another five days.

But people have to take responsibility for themselves, both as 
senders and receivers. The only other choice is a list moderator. 
Even if Andy had time for the job (requiring daily hours of reading 
each post, judging the unacceptable, and dealing with the appeals of 
irate list members), why would he want it. Sure, you could find some 
laid-off assistant high school principal just made for this work. But 
we'd probably have more people leaving the list under his arbitrary 
rule than we now do.

People have to be responsible as senders. I think the OTs are alot of 
fun, when sent in by people of good humor and good nature. Without 
the OTs, this list would be missing a valuable human dimension. 
Nonetheless, we should all have a sticky note on our monitor frames 
reminding us of Richard Brekne's three categories of useless posts:

At 9:01 AM +0100 1/21/03, Richard Brekne wrote:
>1. The occasional Religious or Political bouts ?
>2. The tendancy to get all hot an bothered over disagreements in general ?
>3. All the mindless gibberish, one liners, amens, and side swipes at each
>other that daily go on ?

Need some discipline to avoid generating posts like these? Try the 
vow of silence. 3 days doesn't cut it. Commit to 6 weeks, notice that 
the self-denial of posting doesn't really hurt for the first two 
weeks, and suffer the excruciating pain for the next four.

Of course each of us thinks we're doing just great at this, and it's 
the other guy who's the problem sender. We've got to take 
responsibility as receivers. If we want someone to do the deleting 
for us, then we're asking for a moderated list. Not being able to 
find the Delete key on your keyboard is one thing. Running antique 
email software which lacks filters is another excuse (although not 
much better a one).

Check out your filters. If there's someone you think whose meds need 
reviewing (or worse, enforcing), set up the filter to trash any post 
with that person's email address appearing in any of the header's. If 
you need further protection from that person's posts as they may be 
reflected in other peoples' replies, set up a separate filter for 
every possible indicator of that person's text (an attribution line 
in the body using the Evil One's email address, nickname or last 
name). Admittedly, this would grab useless OTs and valuable technical 
information alike. But hey, you didn't want to do the job for 
yourself and you handed it over to the computer.

Consider the recent Amerigo Vespucci debacle. Thump found out two 
things: first, who wasn't filtering him out and second, who would get 
suckered into that discussion.

If you don't like somebody, but want to hold out hope that they can 
make a valuable contribution, set up the filter for that person's 
address in "Any Header". When they begin saying something 
interesting, someone else (who isn't filtering them out) will quote 
it, you'll read about it, and if you want the Evil One's original 
remarks, you can dig them out of the trash. You can even set up a 
conditional on your filter which passes that person's posts on that 
particular thread.

It's a free country, but on this list, the price of freedom is having 
to do your own deleting.

At 11:16 AM -0500 3/23/03, David Skolnik wrote:
>Actually, I just realized something.  It's not your piano-related 
>comments I missed at all...it's the book and film quotes at the end. 
>Maybe we could have a separate, moderated list, just for sign-offs. 
>(0 I --)

Your mom and I were just talking about you, how you had a sharp 
honesty which no amount of manners could sheath. <g>

Bill Ballard RPT
NH Chapter, P.T.G.

"That's Del Blaine. She's having a filter installed between her brain 
and her mouth, next week.
     ...........Jennifer Love Hewitt introduced, in "The Tuxedo"
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