Dear Brent I was concerned with your reaction to the discussion on PEN-L, because (a) I contribute myself and want to make sure I am not causing unnecessary offence (I have no compunction about necessary offence, but only when called for) (2) I was very interested in this same discussion and follow it carefully, nay avidly, (3) I have always assumed that people on lists will use the technology to filter out what they don't want to hear. It's what I certainly do. I would very much like to know what others think. Nearly all E-Mail systems nowadays have what is called a 'killfile' or 'scripting' facility which allows you to automatically delete, and in many cases automatically file, copy, forward or even reply to files which contain words that you designate, either in the sender field, the subject field, the CC field or if you feel really oppressed, the text itself. Are all PEN-L users aware of this? I have always assumed they were. If not, maybe Michael or a friendly helper could produce a FAQ on how to do this, which could be mailed once to subscribers and thereafter to new joiners. If you don't want to be burdened with reading a particular thread of conversation, you just set your friendly E-Mailer to ignore it and you won't even know it's there. Of course, people who contribute to lists have to respect the needs of others by setting up subject headings so that this can be done as painlessly as possible. I admit that on some lists it is difficult to work out what thread a posting belongs to because participants keep changing the subject headings. When this happens, I admit, it is more difficult to shut out the noise and I certainly have a threshhold of about 50 messages per day in total, so I do tend to stay off the more unruly lists (I can always download at leisure from their archives) But if the discussion you refer to is the one I think, then in fairness it should be said that the participants have stuck to the rules, since all the subject headings have the same title in them and you can just set your mailer to search and destroy this heading. Actually, my scripter is set to copy them all into a standard folder and I don't think I've missed any. If you feel really put upon you can even search and destroy any mail from the individuals involved, a procedure I admit to having been driven in the past in other contexts. Personally in this particular case I would hope you wouldn't do that, because I do actually think the topic a rather important one and the contributors have a lot to say. But, as you say, whatever gives you happiness. But on the whole I am quite content with the PEN-L setup . Am I a minority? I am content because you can more or less work out what to do from the subject heading. I think it works quite well, on the whole. The numbering system is a beauty, because generally speaking conversations start with a particular number which gets repeated in the subsequent replies. You can therefore set scripts to look for this number. Maybe we should more clearly delineate Netiquette for setting up subject headings, to make this easier. Maybe we should all think a bit more carefully about subject headings, with the overburdened lurker - as well as the bibliophile - in mind. This too might be the subject of a FAQ, or part of the list guidelines? However if your reaction were generalised then I think it would be a shame because we would lose one of the really decisive advantages of listserver and E-Mail technology which make much wider collaborative enterprises possible. Unlike a seminar or a lecture or even a cocktail party, the formalism does not force you either to listen to what you don't want to hear, or stop talking because someone else is. To me, that's an advance. I wouldn't want to lose it, and it doesn't seem to me there is any reason to. Moreover I tend to think all the alternatives are worse. Some institutions run moderated lists, for example, where the sysop actually decides which contributions will appear when, in order to provide for a manageable flow. This works, I think, only if the list is divided up into forums so that people who want to go off and have a specialised conversation can do so without preventing others on the list from visiting. It's also a fulltime job for the sysop, and we're all busy people. An alternative which would require more sophisticated software than is generally used on the internet is to have a Compuserve- style list organisation, which is actually broken up into 'threads' by the system so that you can start at the root of a conversation and follow it all the way down with replies, counter-replies, and branches. Maybe there's software out there that does this for normal Internet mail - any gurus out there know of any? As far as I know, the only regulatory device needed is to ensure that each message contains a field saying which message it is replying to. Actually it is because of the lack of such a facility that the habit has developed whereby each mailer repeats the text of previous mailings; it is not out of disrespect, but out of respect, for the needs of others who join the thread halfway and cannot trace it back to its root. So I am rather pleased they do this. I can see it would get tedious if you feel compelled to read every message from beginning to end, but this is really a self-imposed penance and you are under no obligation to read a single line. I am concerned also with the accidental growth of censorious attitudes on the internet, possibly caused by inadequate knowledge. I had a long message last week from God, or the nearest thereto on the UK Internet, a person who regulates all the lists on the mailbase server, complaining about the nuclear tests chain letter. This from a person who should be technically knowledgable; she went so far as to mail the postmaster of the two students who initiated it in Tokyo complaining that chain letters were an abuse of the internet and they should be disconnected. Setting aside the fact that if someone tried to drop a nuclear bomb in my back yard I would consider that a substantial abuse of the internet and I wouldn't expect to be disconnected for spoiling someone's morning by pointing it out, the reaction is, it seems to me, a result of simple ignorance. It is a completely inappropriate way of dealing with a problem that can be easily solved by good faith and a little education. The bottom line is that, even with PEN-L as it is, I would like to be able to listen to the very conversation to which you object. It would be a shame if I couldn't, and it would be a shame if you were forced to read something you don't want to. It seems to me there is no reason we shouldn't both meet our private objectives on a public list; and I hope we will see you again. Alan Freeman in [PEN-L:39] Brent Phillips wrote: I must vent my frustration -- we have had over the last several weeks a discussion between two or three people at great length and at great detail about -- (what was it) -- with each repeating what each said , in infinite detail, about whatever I had no interest in. If that is what the list is about, I have no interest in it. There is no way -- let me repeat, no way -- that should be regurgitated an nausium on the net. If the people are interested, and I do not argue that they should not be, in such topics they should do it off-net, not tie up our own time and resourses on the net on issues of more interest to the rest. If, on the other hand, people on the net think that this is what it is all about, may I say peace, discourse and whatever, be your happiness. And goodbye.
