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Subject:Re: Help! Help! I'm being misread! From:"Bruce B. Harper" <BHARPER -at- VTVM1 -dot- CC -dot- VT -dot- EDU> Date:Thu, 3 Jun 1993 13:44:41 EDT
On Thu, 3 Jun 1993 09:27:43 -0600 Matt Hicks said:
>. . . The questioner then becomes the only person who has to see
>duplicated information--messages they would receive anyway as a list
>member--and can filter out the noise before the rest of the group sees
>the information.
Perhaps this is what you should have done when you posted your
original missive about all the "me too" messages that hit the list--since
you have generated an almost equal volume of messages from people who
sent "me too" messages that agree with you. :-)
Your suggestion does have merit, though, and I agree with you about
the amount of duplicate "noise" that may clutter a list. However, your
"let the questioner summarize the responses" is not the be-all/end-all
answer either. Yes, there shouldn't be a spate of "I use WordPerfect too"
messages, but to have all the answers go to someone off line may quell
an informative disucssion that could be sparked by a response to the list.
One also must trust the person asking the question to post the summarized
responses.
On another list I am on, the "send the answer to my question directly
to me" is the standard operating procedure--but list members complained
that they were trying to learn also and had the same type questions and
wanted to see answers on the list.
There is no easy answer. Part of it is a learning process for list
members who are "fast on the keyboard" in answering questions. If more
people would wait and read more of their mail before zipping off a
response, they might see that someone else has already answered the
question they just read. Everyone reads their mail at different times
(some sites even get mail at different rates--a full spool on our mainframe
delays mail delivery here), so there shouldn't be a case of everyone
waiting for someone else to go first.
Bruce
Administrative Display System Bruce B. Harper, Manager
130 Smyth Hall, Institutional Research
Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, Virginia 24061-0433
(703)231-4373
BHARPER -at- VTVM1 (BITNET) or BHARPER -at- VTVM1 -dot- CC -dot- VT -dot- EDU (Internet)
