Re: On blocking the list (was Re: viruses after the downtime?)

En réponse à Philippe Caquant :


>I agree with list blocking. 100 messages a day is
>quite a lot - but if there are 100 contributors,
>that's just one message a day each, which is
>frustrating ! I had a (probably wrong ?) idea: why not
>split the list into 2 different ones, one about
>phonology and the other about syntax, semantics and
>others ? The majority of the messages I see are about
>phonology, and although I can very well understand
>that people can get passionated about that topic, it's
>just not my "cup of tea" and I regularly delete them
>after just a glance (even if sometimes I regret it
>just after deleting).
Already proposed, and already replied negatively to. The reason is simple: 
it would split unnecessarily the community, would create misunderstandings 
among newbies, and eventually would be useless as most people would have to 
subscribe to both. And since discussions can move from phonology to syntax 
to semantics and back to phonetics (everything is related), how can you 
handle that with such an artificial separation? The answer is easy: you 
cannot. So for all practical purposes, splitting the list is just not the 
solution. The solution is own responsibility:
- read *every* mail you received from the list before answering any of 
them. Big chances are that other people will have already replied the same 
as you would have done, if not better. No need to duplicate replies (the 
main cause of list holding, even more than OT posts in my opinion).
- think *very* carefully before answering. If the only reply you can give 
is "great" or "yes", or something whose semantic contents is not bigger 
than that, you'd better not reply. The only exception I make are "welcome" 
messages to newbies. Even if you only want to say "welcome", making a 
newbie feel at ease is more important than the daily limit IMHO.

Using only those two rules, I post probably only one fourth of what I would 
post otherwise. A pretty big win in my opinion.

>I'm also a little bit perplex when receiving OT (or
>not OT) messages about exotic food or beverages. Uh,
>well, maybe it's a tradition here ? (I'm new and know
>little), but I thought the general themes were about
>linguistics, one way or another ?
The community feeling in this list is strong, and the off-topic posting is 
a great part of it. It's one of the things that makes this list special and 
for nothing in the world would I want to change that :) .

Christophe Grandsire.

http://rainbow.conlang.free.fr

You need a straight mind to invent a twisted conlang.