Re: List-Improvement Suggestions LO1747

Jim Michmerhuizen (jamzen@world.std.com)
Thu, 22 Jun 1995 21:32:27 +0059 (EDT)

Replying to LO1692 --

I too would not like to see the list unnaturally divided. But increasing
size and density of the list _is_ getting to be a problem.

I did a terrible thing a couple of days ago: I deleted about a hundred
L-O messages from my inbox WITHOUT READING THEM. I'd been away from it
for a week and was simply overwhelmed when I came back.

How does something like this - apart from, or rather prior to, all the
techno issues - _naturally_ divide itself? Well, obviously the threads
themselves constitute subgroups... .

I don't like having to fit postings into some fixed set of keyword
concepts. The drawbacks are

- it requires posters to make a judgement call (what keyword shall
I use?) just at a moment when one is being spontaneous. That's why it's
so inhibiting. In the middle of a glorious pirouette, I have to think
about my toes...
- the keyword semantics will be just different enough, for different
posters, to generate a constant low-level fog of miscommunication.
- no single posting ever has an entirely univocal role under a given
set of keywords. This can reduce me to jelly.

Threads are an intermediate level of structure. I like them. The name of
a thread is determined, usually, by its initiator. Threads are _concrete_
in a way that mere conceptual systems can never be. When we have a
hundred simultaneous threads - _that's_ when to call in the keywords.

How do people interact with a group like this? The way I interact with
the whole list is _not_ the same issue as the way I interact with
individual postings. With the list as a whole, in one session, what kinds
of decisions do people make? In my case (I hope we hear from others) they
might go somethng like this:

How many entries are there tonight? What threads are active? Which one
dominates the discussion? What are my favorite authors doing? Anybody
new? Where from? Got any flak from my last night's reply to NN? Anybody
pick up on that screwball question from QQ? Flatten ZZ?

No structured system that disallows unstructured rummaging can work. A
system that allowed me to focus at will - during periods when my
participation time is limited - on a couple of threads, without completely
blocking the "peripheral vision" of the whole list - that would get votes
from me.

--
Regards
     Jim Michmerhuizen
     jamzen@world.std.com
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