So in response to what seemed like a reasonable suggestion (from another list poster) that ECOLOG posters limit the number of posts per individual (sort of like asking excessively vocal faculty members to allow a faculty meeting to proceed by limiting their outbursts) and that we try to keep post quality high (sort of like peer review), the Ecolog moderator advises that we just filter posters who are taking over Ecolog or who are obvious trolls? Such a response is analogous to this line of reasoning: Ecologist: "We need to decrease the number of papers per issue, increase the quality of papers, and increase the rigor of peer review in the journal Ecology." (There is too much noise and too many errors on Ecolog, we should ask members to limit the number of posts per person and push for greater quality.) ESA: "if you don't like papers in Ecology, then don't read them." (Just filter out the noise.) I have had an Ecolog subscription since it started, when I was a grad student, and it was really useful and interesting. However, in my personal, subjective, anecdotal opinion, the average quality of posts has severely declined. I used to recommend it to students, but now I do not, because the very faint signal of good ecological information is often lost in the noise of excessive (and sometimes unintelligible) prose from a small fraction of posters. Sure, there are options for dealing with this putative problem, such as filtering, or using the digest, but these are sub-optimal and are somewhat like trying to treat a sickness rather than trying to prevent it. I cannot recommend this forum to students or colleagues because I can see little value now other than job postings. The occasional opportunity for one to offer an opinion on theory or methods (or to get insight from relevant theoretical or methodological posts) often will be met with a cacophony of disorganized, top-of-the-head ideas and opinions (uh... kind of like this post right here?). Conversely, and equally frustrating, substantive theoretical questions may often be met with complete silence. It does beg the question of why I still have my subscription... The irony here (actually, there are several ironies in this post) is that I HAVE filtered certain posters, thus I have missed most of the discussion here... Cheers, Lee p.s. I once had a post denied because I said that a climate-change denier poster was "hoist by his own petard" (from Shakespeare). So there is SOME quality control on Ecolog.
******************************************************* Lee Dyer Biology Dept. 0314 UNR 1664 N Virginia St Reno, NV 89557 OR 585 Robin St Reno, NV 89509 Email: nolaclim...@gmail.com Web: www.caterpillars.org phone: 504-220-9391 (cell) 775-784-1360 (office) > Date: Tue, 28 May 2013 23:05:51 -0600 > From: ino...@umd.edu > Subject: [ECOLOG-L] filtering messages > To: ECOLOG-L@LISTSERV.UMD.EDU > > I suspect that all e-mail programs have the capability to filter > messages. You can typically filter by subject, by sender, etc. So > it's not difficult to set up your account to filter out messages from > particular ECOLOG-L subscribers, or threads you don't want to > follow. For example, here's information about how to do that with Outlook. > > http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/outlook-help/manage-email-messages-by-using-rules-HA010355682.aspx > > For Eudora, go to Tools > Filters (probably the same for Thunderbird). > > For Gmail, see https://support.google.com/mail/answer/6579?hl=en. > > Another option is to get the daily digest so all you get is one > message a day from the list. To set your subscription to the digest > form, send (from your subscribed address) the message > set ecolog-l digest > to > lists...@listserv.umd.edu > > And you can also scan listserv messages on the weekly archive, which > has a table of contents for each > week: > <https://listserv.umd.edu/archives/ecolog-l.html>https://listserv.umd.edu/archives/ecolog-l.html > > > > David Inouye, list owner and moderator. > > > > Dr. David W. Inouye, Professor > Associate Chair, Director of Graduate Studies > Dept. of Biology > University of Maryland > College Park, MD 20742-4415 > > Rocky Mtn. Biological Laboratory > PO Box 519 > Crested Butte, CO 81224 > > ino...@umd.edu > 301-405-6946 > > 2013-14 President-elect, Ecological Society of America
