Re: Where Angels Fear To Tread

[Jim Brick <jim@brick.org>]

At 12:55 AM 8/5/97 -0300, you wrote:
>Ladies and Gentlemen of the LUG:
>
> 89 of the messages generated just during waking hours of this day
>are from the Leica list.
>
>I humbly contend that this is getting out of hand. More than half the
>messages should have been sent privately or were hopeless repeats of
>repeats of repeats. 
>
>If we can agree on anything, could we agree not to post what should be
>personal messages to the whole list. And could you read what 5-25 others
>have already posted on a subject and not repeat the exact same
>information that adds nothing to the discussion and only clogs
>mailboxes. 
>
>If we all would be a bit more careful, the list will be a great deal
>more interesting and efficient. 
>
>Thank you.
>
>Fred Ward
>

Good post Fred. I have always advocated that a good e-mail list, with
intelligent participates, will police itself. I to think that responding,
ad nauseum, over and over, with the same information, is useless.
HOWEVER... I have also discovered that some people have a continuous
internet connection (me) while others may log on once a day to read and
answer mail. This happens to me when I'm out of my office for the day. What
happens is, as you are reading down the list and come upon something that
you want to respond to, you do. Unfortunately, had you read the entire list
of new mail you would have discovered that what you just responded to, has
already been responded to, in exactly the same way several times. Possibly
because of the same reason. Also, the internet has hiccups which will delay
routes and cause ripples to echo around the world. This causes some mail to
be late. So yes, I agree with you that everyone should be more careful and
not respond in kind, to already responded to messages. But because it's the
internet, well... sometimes it'll work and other times it won't. I think we
all should be a little more responsible, perhaps read through all of the
new mail before answering anything. I'll certainly try this.

Jim