Randy Rees (Volt Computer) wrote:
> As for the off the topic subjects , its kind
> of like having a party, not everyone will talk about the same thing, but
> everyone sure had fun.
No, there is an enormous difference.
Think of this as a party where everybody wears duct tape
over their mouths at all times, except there is one
megaphone.
In order to say something, you pick up the megaphone,
take off the duct tape and say your piece.
When you chat at a party it doens't have
to be on topic so much because only a few people
listen. But here, every little detail gets read
by everyone. Everyone stops what they are doing
to listen, and doesn't have a choice.
You know when you go to a car show and there is
always some idiot leaning over his car saying stuff
like "Oh I gots me a good trick, I just puts me
a little dog turd in every fillup. That and a little
spit and I gets me 300hp".
...or the guy who walks up to your MGB and says
"I never liked these italian cars, with the damn
engine in the back".
There, only the people around him get annoyed. Here,
everybody on the whole list has to read it. And worse,
it's usually not even car nonsense, it's pure
nonsense.
There is also a group that says "Well, it breaks up
my day". I bet these people only subscribe to
one maillist. I've said this before, but here it is
again.
Many people, including me, subscribe to many maillists
on many topics. Cars, computers, sports, you name it. The
problem is that YOU might have time to read 100 bogus
posts about just anything. That might be tolerable or
maybe even acceptable to some. But when you are on a few
lists, that becomes 500 bogus posts.
The effect is that you have to drop off some lists that
you want to follow and feel you could profit from. This
because everybody thinks "Oh I'll just throw this in
as chit-chat, nobody minds it's only one more post".
--
Trevor Boicey
Ottawa, Canada
tboicey@brit.ca
http://www.brit.ca/~tboicey/
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