Re: Where Angels Fear to Tread

[Jim Brick <jim@brick.org>]

At 02:07 PM 8/8/97 EDT, Eric wrote:
>
>     A USED CAMERA RETURNED as unsatisfactory!  Who has not had this
>
>     LENS CLEANING!  Reams of messages on solvents, skivvies, wiping
>
>     AE-vs-MANUAL WARS!  Honestly, I thought people had decided long
>
>     WHO'S ENTITLED TO PRIORITY SERVICE AT LEICA?  Doesn't it just
>                                              make your blood boil...
>
>     Of course I could continue to wade through all this if I had
>more time, but I don't.  I truly don't see why some people find the
>notion of keeping a list _topical_ and _efficient_ so constraining;
>some lists clearly manage this, others don't.  I'd like to see this
>list do so, but otherwise I'm willing to leave it to those who are just
>out to kick back and chat.  Sorry if I've offended anyone while
>I was here; I'm certainly no "angel".
>
>                                 --  Eric Meyer.

Hi Eric, and any others who share Eric's feelings,

Thanks for the entertaining post. This is really easy to figure out. If you
talk about something or ask a question and nobody picks-up on it, that is,
no response, well... I guess whatever you had to say did not interest anybody.

On the other hand, if you see dozens of people discussing different
threads, even if it is LENS CLEANING or AE vs MANUAL or SERVICE, or or
or... well... it doesn't take very many brain cells to figure out that THAT
IS WHAT PEOPLE (AT LEAST A LOT OF PEOPLE) WANT TO TALK ABOUT. Like it or
not, the people that belong to this list WILL talk about WHATEVER gets
answered, or whatever interests them, or both. It's a fact of human nature.
And you, nor anyone else, is going to change that.

I believe people should read what has been posted so as not to duplicate
information. But on the internet, with a world of time zones, router
delays, list vs digest, etc... it is not always possible to walk the
straight and narrow. So look at the subject line and if the subject does
not interest you, just say no! Push DELETE.

As far as list management, the manager of this list does a rather good job.
He knows that the people on here are mature, professional, adult, Leica
photographers, and can indeed take care of themselves. Aberrations usually
do not last very long. By the time a manager got involved and actually did
something, it would be over anyway. Even irate interchanges burn out rather
quickly. Nobody, especially in front of this sophisticated crowd, wants to
look like a fool. Even an old fart like me. And believe me, I have!

As everybody knows, I have little use for M talk and no use for LTM talk.
Especially Zorki or Dorki or whatever. But I feel that if that was the ONLY
thing ever talked about on this list, that would be OK. Because that would
be what the list participants WANT to talk about. And that is what an
e-mail list is about. If the participants cannot talk about what they want
to talk about, they won't participate. AND THEN THERE IS NO LIST!  GONE.

The one thing that would help enormously with sorting through volumes of
messages is if everybody would make sure that the SUBJECT LINE is valid and
represents the post. This way changed threads don't get deleted by mistake
or vise versa.

Jim