All,
In short, if people truly followed the
"Rules of the Road", I think that the digest
will work just fine. A few thoughts on how
I see those rules:
- Don't quote huge chunks of the message
you are responding to.
Unfortunately, this falls on deaf ears far
too much of the time. It's hard to get to the
meat of people's posts when dozens of lines
are quoted (often with poor format) and then
there are just a few lines of reply. When this
is coupled with just a simple "disagree"
or "agree" with the original post, I find it
a blatant waste of my and probably other's time.
- Appropriate Subject Line.
All too often, there are too many people who
just stick with the default reply their mail
software generates and we are left with
headings like "RE: Glorantha Digest 1142".
This greatly slows down my ability to skim
to what I want to read. I certainly never
get anything out of a generic reference like that.
- Paraphrase.
This greatly ties in with number one. People
are so sensitive to being accused of missing
someone else's point, or being counterattacked
with "that's not what I said" that lengthy
quoting results. This is a shame.
- No anonymous posting.
No problems with this for quite some time.
THE GENERAL NATURE OF THIS GROUP:
I don't see the need to split hairs over
whether this is a barroom chat or a hushed
discussion in the library, as long as a few
simple rules are followed:
- Be polite. (I confess I sometimes fail)
- Be understanding.
- Be kind.
- Relax, it's just a game.
- Encourage, not discourage others.
- Actively welcome other points of view.
- Ginna Jar
Individual emails vs. a Digest format:
It seems like email programs, if people
explored their options and settings,
would largely make this point moot.
I'm no whiz with MS Outlook, but I'm
sure it has a number of tools that would
help me undigest the digest if I preferred
that approach to reading it. I'm lazy, so
I haven't bothered to figure out how to
set those settings or use those tools,
but I'm not going to try and change the
digest to single emails because of that.
WHY DON"T NEWBIES RESPOND?
Most likely it's because there aren't
that many of them. Add on the learning
curve and I doubt many take the plunge.
A few might read the digest for quite some
time and feel overwhelmed, and see the
occasional argument, but I don't think
a fear of being slammed drives many away.
More than likely, it is for a wide variety
of reasons, many of which would be
eliminated if people just followed the
simple maxim of "encouraging others"
IN THE END:
Between the HQ-Digest, HW-Rules, and this
digest, I'm pretty well covered. In many
respects I wish there were fewer groups,
possibly only one. There was a time when
the RQ Daily/Gloranthan Digest was enough
for the vast majority of us before we let it
get splintered as people felt they were
reading too much stuff they didn't care
about.
That's my take on all this.
Rick Meints
www.glorantha.info
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