Unwritten rules of the list?

kelley kwalker2 at gte.net
Sun Sep 30 23:00:47 PDT 2001


At 02:09 PM 10/1/01 +0900, Charles Jannuzi wrote:
>Kelly writes in part:
> >>> because i'm fed up and i'm going to blow a fuse. wait! i AM blowing a
>fuse<<
>
>Actually, Kelly, I'm bit fed up myself, but save the fuses for real
>problems.
> You see, I'm a bit fed up at people who quote entire posts in order to
>reply to one part

i covered that: that's what a giant encrusted dingleberry is.


>of them and then write as if they were in a personal
>conversation with someone in a rather public place.

that's obviously your interpretation of what is going on. i think it's a rather unsupportable one since most listserv debates are often held between two people who know they aren't going to convince the other person in the discussion; they do know, however, that they have an audience. for instance, i imagine right now that doug's pissed at me for being such a bithc. i imagine that there are at least 10 people i know that are cheering me on and another ten that think i'm as much of an asshole as you do.


>Second, I'm a bit fed up with all the quotes within quotes within quotes.
>Most of the points being made are not that fine tuned anyway. What is it,
>you people never made it out of grad. school or something? And don't they
>teach paraphrase and summary as writing skills?

well, that's a bitch too, but i decided to focus on two things. we've had this discussion before, asking people to clip extraneous material because it costs doug money for each and every k that gets sent across this list. i'm with ya here. but there's a happy medium.


> Third, I'm a bit tired of all those text bombardments from online
>articles--a link would suffice in most cases. In the case of Debka or NY
>Times not even that.
>
>But you know what? If someone wants to violate my sense of what's best for
>a list, they can go right ahead. That's because I'm a sophisticated pc user
>with a delete button.

no, a sophisticated PC user checks out the milieu within which he posts and pays attention. if a norm puzzles him, then he stops and thinks about why people are doing it the way they're doing it and considers the positives and negatives and makes a reasoned choice as to why he should or shouldn't go along with it -- something a bit more sophisticated than some gesture at "i can do what i want, it ain't bothering you, so there" response.


>I believe, Kelly, that you would have a hard time following me even if I
>did quote all that much. That's because I'm not always necessarily
>responding to a particular point.

you have clearly been responding to particular issues raised in various threads.


>Get it? And you know what? Not all things worth reading
>are worth replying to in an interrogational way.

replying in-line is not inherently interrogatory. it is, however, a courtesy that's important to readers of a list so that they can follow a thread. there's a reason for the practice; no one pulled it out of their arse unjustified.


>Sometimes I'm really obtuse
>and say to myself, gosh, what can I write in response to a thread so that
>no one will reply? Blows your mind doesn't it?
>
>Besides, you can always go to the online archive if you are having a hard
>time following a thread.

there are a couple of issues wrt articles. i typically post an excerpt and link. however, i also make it clear that certain readers on this list can write to get the entire thing from me. guess why? some people, charles, don't have web access: elena who lives in bulgaria, for example. and some people pay by the minute, particularly people in other countries such as eastern europe. i, myself, used to get 5 hrs a month with AT&T years ago. It's now 100 hrs a month, iirc, but it all adds up and linking to web pages takes time if you're on a slow 28k dial up.

they shouldn't be expected to hang out on line waiting for web pages to load and searching for an post(s) you posted and the ones that you're replying to

furthermore, i keep my own archives right on my hard drive. i don't think i should have to scroll through all the posts on a thread just to get a sense of why YOU chose to post and what may have prompted your discussion. they are good discussions, but i'd like to have a bit more of an idea what the context for your post is all about. it's a basic courtesy and you don't need to leave everything in. you'll notice, for example, that doug henwood is very good about this.


>I always do. Please rest assured, if I post on a
>thread I'm responding to the totality of that thread. Give me specific
>examples of my supposed irrelevance and I'll provide textual clues from
>previous posts (like titles of threads) to show otherwise.

i would like to know who and what you are addressing. i think that's a decent courtesy to extend to others here.


>Sometimes it's best to beat around the bush instead of going right for the
>point because often there are no simple points to be made.

no doubt.


>And by the way, you are completely off thread and would have better started
>your own one (basic netiquette)--about the need for in line quotes so list
>culture will not be violated or something.

it was to get your attention.


>Charles Jannuzi
>
>PS: btw, you could have at least said thanks for the tip on John Pilger, or
>didn't you follow that?

was that tip directed at me? well, nifty! whadda guy.

kelley

"mr. pivner elevated himself on one narrow ham and broke wind, a soft interrogative sound which went unanswered. then he sagged and stared at the newspaper, untroubled by the notion that this might have been a demon leaving its residence inside him."

William Gaddis The Recognitions



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