Re: META: A plea

>  > If you ask me, the CHAT: label in a subject line is a sorry excuse for
>>  an off-topic posting.  Better do not post it.
>
>I think I have to agree with Taliesin here:  the CHAT label serves a
>useful function as long as people are responsible and judicious in its
>use.  I have, for my part, been trying to be more careful to note the
>kind of material that goes in in the post in the the heading so as to
>avoid this problem.  Is David Durand around?  Perhaps he could
>remind us all what the labeling system is like, so that all of us, including
>many newcomers who've never been told about it, could make better
>use of it.
I'm sorry for being such an absentee listadmin these days. The volume
of postings is making things more difficult to follow, esp. given my
workload these days.

Here is the list of topics:
CHAT,NGL,THEORY,USAGE,GROUPLANG
You can turn these on and off via listserv commands, or, more
conveniently, via listserv's web interface. This is a relatively
low-tech forms-based interface that should work even with lynx.

The URL for the web interface is:

http://listserv.brown.edu/archives/conlang.html

I will add this information to the new-subscriber mail.


>  > We could do away with the
>  > CHAT: postings and several other and thereby reduce traffic a lot.
CHAT prefixes can be eliminated by setting a listserv option.

Some of the old prefixes, like NGL, can probably be changed, as they
are not common topics any more. Some, like THEORY, are only
intermittently a problem.

>We could, that's true.  But Conlang is more than an intellectual forum
>for a good number of us are here. We simply enjoy being around each
>other: we are friends.  That is one reason I value this list, because everyone
>is so civil, and respectful of each other*, and generally doesn't put ideology
>about language or politics or religious belief over valuing others as
>interlocutors and as people.
This is true, and one reason that I miss the list when, as now, I
must read it infrequently.

It's also a key part of the reason that I leave it to the "sense of
the list" what posting are on- and off-topic, and when sheer volume
acts to change that balance.

I must say that we've reached a level of traffic where a tighter
focus may be a good idea, but that's just my opinion, and I don't see
myself as having the right to enforce it.


    -- David
--
-------------------------------
David Durand
david@dynamicDiagrams.com
Chief Technical Officer
Dynamic Diagrams
http://www.dynamicDiagrams.com/