Why I object to the new mailing list (repost)

[ed@wente.llnl.gov (Ed Suranyi)]

I didn't see this make it to rec.music.gaffa, so I'm posting it again.

    I've been a pretty regular poster on love-hounds for quite a few
years now, so many of you know me.  I haven't yet said anything about
the new mailing list "warm room", so some of you may be wondering how
I feel.  Frankly, this posting was brought on by a conversation with
Vickie last night, in which she mentioned that the mailing list had
actually started operation, and that there were now around two dozen
subscribers.  I hadn't realize that things had progressed that far!
     This morning I had a conversation with Andy Marvick, aka IED, to
discuss this a bit more, and to help me clarify my thoughts.  I do
not like the idea of this mailing list, and I'll try to explain why.
     First, a minor annoyance for me:  It's much easier for me to reply
to others' postings when they are in newsgroups than when they are in
mailing lists, ESPECIALLY if the mailing list comes as one huge digest.
With my news reader, "rn", I just hit "F" to reply; this automatically
sets up the editor with the previous message indicated by ">" characters.
With a digest, I have to figure out the line numbers where the posting
I'm interested begins and ends, delete the rest of the digest, and manually
insert ">"s.  For each posting to which I want to reply, I have to make
a copy of the digest.  It's such a pain that I never reply to postings
from such mailing lists.  It's somewhat easier to reply when the postings
come as separate mailings, but then there's another problem:  lack of
organization.  I already subscribe to several mailing lists, and it's
annoying when they arrive in bits and pieces, all mixed up.  Rec.music.gaffa
is organized into a single newsgroup, yet it is easy to deal with.
     Second, and getting a little more generally applicable, a digest
always takes time to come out.  For example, the love-hounds digest
comes out once a day, usually in the morning.  When it's working at
its best, rec.music.gaffa posts articles within a few minutes of receiving
them.  Thus, it can be more up to date, and more like a real conversation.
Admittedly, if the mailing list uses separate mailings the delay is 
not a problem.
     Now consider rec.music.gaffa.  What, really, is so bad about what's
going on in it right now?  We've had flame wars in the past, and survived
just fine.  In fact, I'd say that the current goings on are like nothing
compared to some from a few years ago.  And even those aren't much
compared to flame wars in other newsgroups.  Check out any of the 
"talk.politics" newsgroups for samples of what I mean.
     Those of you who read my postings probably know that I rarely
contribute to such flame wars.  My forte is providing information.  If
I realize that a particular posting is not of interest to me, I simply
skip it and go on to the next one.  I know that some people do that
do my postings, as well.  It doesn't bother me, because I get enough
response through, e.g., e-mail to know that others ARE interested in
what I post.  So whenever a flame war starts that doesn't interest
me, I just ignore it.  If I really wanted to make sure I didn't see
any of those postings, I would add the subject to my kill files.  Usually,
I just don't care enough.
    Finally, rec.music.gaffa has a great history behind it.  It started
way back in 1985, and in some ways is going stronger than ever.  There
are continual requests posted for new subscriptions or information for
new Kate fans.  There are certainly hundreds, if not thousands, of
readers.  Think of all the great contributors to this group, past and
present.  Do we really want to leave this and come to a small,
hard-to-find mailing list?  One of the wonderful things about .gaffa is
the number of people who discovered it by accident, and decided to
try Kate out because of our postings.
    I was discussing this with Andy Marvick, and he basically agrees
with me.  Since he's been with love-hounds from near the beginning,
he especially thinks that the current crisis is one we've gone through
before, and will go through again.  Remember his war with Doug Alan
over "Nice to Swallow"?  Eventually it stopped.  Same thing will happen
with the current conflict.
     I have the feeling I will be forced to subscribe to the new mailing
list, just to keep up with all the Kate talk.  But it wouldn't be my
choice.

Ed
ed@wente.llnl.gov