P3D Re: Mailing lists

[Peter Davis <pd@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

At 10:47 PM 3/31/99 , John Roberts wrote:
>Now of course there are different interpretations of what qualifies as
>being "inconsiderate". I have personally known a number of people who
>seriously believe in the "I don't mind if you chew gum in public, so why
>should you mind if I blow cigarette smoke in your face" school of thought.
>Perhaps this isn't quite so extreme an example, but it should be remembered
>that these spinoff lists were not created frivolously or on the spur of the
>moment - a lot of thought went into their creation, and a lot of people
>strongly believed in the need to do so.

The problem is that every thread is a separate topic, which will
potentially be of interest to some, and not to others.  Should we start a
separate list for everything?  I happen not to be going NSA this year, so I
have no interest whatsoever in the recent postings about air fares to Green
Bay, etc.  I am also not currently interested in lenticular prints.  So
does that make everyone who posts on these subjects inconsiderate?

The advantage of having one big list is that people who THOUGHT they were
not interested in a given topic sometimes found that ... surprise!  They
were!  Sometimes people gain new interests and insights.  That's the
advantage of having one big list, instead of lots of separate lists for
each subtopic.  Of course, no one forces you to read every posting.  But
many is the time I stopped on the verge of deleting a message, and decided
to read further because something caught my attention.

If you're really opposed to even seeing anything outside of your own
predefined set of interests, you probably shouldn't be on the list at all.
There's no telling when somebody might invade your space with some new
discovery.

>I did not mean to imply that any specific person in the current discussion
>was deliberately trying to be inconsiderate, and in fact you did not
>specifically advocate going back to a single list - you just said you liked
>the single list better.

I DO advocate going back to a single list.  I still don't think that makes
me inconsiderate.  I abide by the rules we've established, but I can also
point out where and why I think they should be changed.

-pd


--------
                             Peter Davis
               Funny stuff at http://world.std.com/~pd
           Resources for children's writers & illustrators:
		  http://world.std.com/~pd/cwrl.html


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