I've been lurking on this list for a long time, learning tons, implementing some
things on
my own, helping out as I can (which isn't much).
I feel like I know all the frequent posters on the list by now. It's funny how that
happens, but I can recognize each person's "tone," like a familiar co-worker. I
really
enjoy the friendly atmosphere, and how much help and information flows here.
Now and then, someone new posts, and sometimes s/he gets off on the wrong foot. One
problem is the medium. I know I've made the mistake in the past (hopefully not on this
list) of being too passionate in my phrasing, and it can be very easily misinterpreted,
smilies notwithstanding.
All in all, I'm proud of this list's tone. As always, when a problem is laid before
others, it's necessary to work through the chaff in order to convince everyone that it
isn't some problem we've seen before, or some issue we've beaten to death. Until we
establish some independent credibility here, we are likely to get a number of answers
that
aren't correct, and maybe even a bunch of blow-off answers that are way off-base. But
this list always gets to an answer eventually, and that's what's great about it.
I'm sorry that Marc Lehmann got some private answers that annoyed him. As someone
posted
recently, maybe one solution is to keep substantive dialogue on the list, and then we
can
make sure not only that our discussion is moderated properly, but that others can share
the information.
