On 17/01/2008, at 7:19 AM, Urbanek, Marty wrote:
Just curious how other members of this community read midrange-l, i.e.
by what mechanism do you read and post?
Plain text e-mail processed in Apple Mail. I have filters in place to
direct mail from the various midrange lists to separate mail boxes--
one for each list to which I subscribe. This keeps my in-box clean
and I can process the midrange mail when it suits me.
I have always used digest mode + plain text because I don't want to be
interrupted with email every two seconds and this combination lets me
quickly scroll to the posts I want to read. But lately, even digest
mode
is becoming tough to keep up with.
Digest mode sucks. It's too hard to answer a specific e-mail. It
requires me to change the subject line. It breaks the links between
related appends on a topic (although lazy-arsed appenders do that
anyway). It's too hard to keep only the useful appends and discard
the dross.
Some people post [seems like] the entire history of the thread to
which
they are replying, so today, for example, I am receiving a digest mode
email every 8 - 15 minutes and they only contain a few new messages
because some of the posts include so much history. I usually just post
one previous message (the one I am immediately replying to), but I can
see the logic in doing it the other way.
These are the same lazy-arsed people I refer to above. Either they
reply to an unrelated message and change the subject, or they copy
the entire message/digest in their reply. Poor netiquette either
because they don't know, don't notice, or are too lazy to care.
This isn't meant to be a criticism of anybody. I'm just wondering what
other people do to manage these messages so they can monitor the
discussions without making a full-time job of it.
Due to the time difference between here and the US most of the list
traffic is waiting in my various mailboxes when I get up. I check my
normal in-box first then process midrange mail while having
breakfast. When I find an append that merits a response I either use
View->Organize by Thread, or use the search filter in Apple Mail to
subset by subject line and check if someone else has already answered
it correctly. If so I usually delete the entire thread. If an append
in the thread contains some gems I'll keep it. I usually don't
respond to a properly answered thread unless I feel I can add
something or correct something.
View->Organize by Thread works well when idiot appenders don't break
or abuse the links between messages. Too many people screw this up
though and often a filtered search on subject is more accurate.
When I first started on these lists there were fewer knowledgeable
people so I used to answer many questions. I also had more tolerance
for 'retard' level questions. I now rarely answer trivial questions
and only then if the appender has bothered to ask it properly. Also
there are more people on the list with higher-level skills in a
closer (to US) timezone which means most of the questions have
already been answered while I was asleep.
For the last few years I have tried (not always successfully) to
refrain from the "opinion" discussions. This has significantly
reduced my input to the list. If I have an opinion I now simply make
my point (for the archives) and generally cease further interaction.
There you have it--for what it's worth.
Regards,
Simon Coulter.
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