Quothe Tony Duell, from writings of Sat, May 18, 2002 at 08:23:47PM +0100:
> The problem with this is that most reasonable people here do not
> deliberately start off-topic threads. Instead, threads drift off-topic,
> and doubtless somebody will therefore reply to something in an off-topic
> way in CCTECH. Which will then annoy the CCTECHers...
Indeed. One observation is that often, what seems like a minor
off-topic remark, unintended to spawn a lengthy thread, can turn into
a lengthy off-topic thread. One idea that may help those of us who
get tempted to make off-topic remarks is to "wait and re-read before
sending." That is, if a message seems to contain a hint of off-topic
wording, save it, wait a while, and then re-consider re-sending it to
the list. While it can be fun, and thought provoking, to engage in
some off-topic discussion and debating, the biggest problem appears to
be that there are only 24 hours in a day, and reading through
off-topic discussions, or trying to weed through them to get to the
on-topic bits, takes a great deal of time that many of us don't have
to spare---and time that could be better spent on other activities.
So, while there are the issues of freedom of speech, and sometimes
very interesting debates, on one hand, there's the loss of time from
one's life on the other hand. Of course, adding OT: to the subject
for messages that drift off-topic can save a great deal of time for
many people on the list, allowing one to quickly scan through messages
and delete them once the off-topicness of a particular thread becomes
too tedious.
What seems to annoy many people, including myself, is that the concern
that certain people on this list have, with regards to off-topic
messages, is not a concern for wasted time, but the concern over
"offensive" messages, and, as a result, these over-sensitive and
politically correct people seek to censor what others say. While I'm
all for freedom of speech, and against political correctness, I
realize that religion and politics are sometimes best left out of
discussions where they don't belong, as tempting as it can be at times
for some to go OT and bring such things into a conversation - there's
no point in causing a rift between people who, otherwise, have
interests in common. Perhaps the aforementioned "wait then post"
method could eliminate a sizeable portion of off-topic messages, while
still allowing enough to get through on CCTALK to provide for the
occasional interesting OT thread or message.
I greatly appreciate what Jay is doing to try to correct the problems,
and hope that everyone will be patient with him. He's done much to
help us with our hobby, and perhaps we really need to judge this list
more by it's merits, which are many, rather than continuing to
complain about it. After all, this list, and many on it, is a great
resource for sharing information that allows us to preserve and
restore our vintage systems.
Equally problematic and time wasting, as I see it, are the discussions
that drift from one subject to another (even if on-topic for the list)
with no change in the subject header. This results in discussions of
multiple subjects with the same subject header, thus making it difficult
to weed through large numbers of messages.
Just my two cents worth.
R.D.D.
--
Copyright (C) 2001 R. D. Davis The difference between humans & other animals:
All Rights Reserved an unnatural belief that we're above Nature &
rdd_at_rddavis.org 410-744-4900 her other creatures, using dogma to justify such
http://www.rddavis.org beliefs and to justify much human cruelty.
Received on Sat May 18 2002 - 23:04:06 BST