Back to the main page

Mailing List Logs for ShadowRN

Message no. 1
From: "J.D. Falk" <jdfalk@***.GWU.EDU>
Subject: Full Mailbox
Date: Sat, 20 Nov 1993 00:47:43 -0500
On Fri, 19 Nov 1993, C. Paul Douglas wrote a hell of a lot of one-line
responses, all signed:

> ----------------GRANITE

I know its not my place to chastize, but such responses are unnecesarry
and unneeded on a public newsgroup. Sure, they make sense in
conversation, but we're talking by different rules here. Some people have
to pay for their mailbox, I've heard. I don't, but when I get 80 messages
and easily 10 are the same person agreeing or inserting useless comments,
I get pissed. I'm trying not to flame, here, but it really annoys me,
because its a total waste of time.

Please, Granite or whoever you are, stop it. Hopefully my public post and
the multitudes of private flames you're likely to get will make the point
pretty clear.

/--------------------\ "I must find the oaf who did this thing,
| J.D. Falk | explain to him his offense,
| jdfalk@***.gwu.edu | give him a chance to apologize,
\--------------------/ and kill him." -Robert A. Heinlein
Message no. 2
From: Ioannis Fikouras <j07c@***.UNI-BREMEN.DE>
Subject: Re: Full Mailbox
Date: Mon, 22 Nov 1993 10:18:28 +0100
> I know its not my place to chastize, but such responses are unnecesarry
> and unneeded on a public newsgroup. Sure, they make sense in
> conversation, but we're talking by different rules here. Some people have
> to pay for their mailbox, I've heard. I don't, but when I get 80 messages
> and easily 10 are the same person agreeing or inserting useless comments,
> I get pissed. I'm trying not to flame, here, but it really annoys me,
> because its a total waste of time.
>
> Please, Granite or whoever you are, stop it. Hopefully my public post and
> the multitudes of private flames you're likely to get will make the point
> pretty clear.

Ok, its nothing personal, but I am sick and tired of people
telling other people what they should do or not do.
I agree that waste of space is not productive, but u cant
just flame people for not doing what u hold for right.
Everyone has the right to post/mail what he wants, thats
the whole point of Lists like this one.
As for people having to pay for other peoples flames,
let them unsubscribe then, or use digest or something.

--

Strong am I with the Force... but not that strong!
Twilight is upon me and soon night must fall.
That is the way of things ... the way of the Force.
Message no. 3
From: "C. Paul Douglas" <granite@********.CLARK.NET>
Subject: Re: Full Mailbox
Date: Mon, 22 Nov 1993 12:38:45 -0500
On Mon, 22 Nov 1993, Ioannis Fikouras wrote:

^ Ok, its nothing personal, but I am sick and tired of people
> telling other people what they should do or not do.
> I agree that waste of space is not productive, but u cant
> just flame people for not doing what u hold for right.
> Everyone has the right to post/mail what he wants, thats
> the whole point of Lists like this one.
> As for people having to pay for other peoples flames,
> let them unsubscribe then, or use digest or something.
>
> --
>
Thanks for the support on principle
------------------GRANITE
Message no. 4
From: Steve Huth <HUTH@***.EDU>
Subject: Re: Full Mailbox
Date: Mon, 22 Nov 1993 20:15:47 -0800
(I apologize for a message that will probably include a number of typos--
my terminal emulation is still screwy and I can't backspace)

If I can respectfully disagree w/ Ioannis Fikouras about this long-
running problem:
Yes, I'm for free speech, and for the right of everyone on this list to
post everything and anything they want, but, perhaps in response to
the incredible rude complainnts about what's posted (excepting, IMHO, JD
Falk's latest complaint) it seems that several members of this list have
gone into a bunker-like defensive position, and are refusing to recognize
the very real problems that can be caused by al l these extraneous posts.
Some examples: small accounts that get regularly overloaded by the volume
(though digest is a tremendoyus lifesaver there); a lack of time to read
all of the daily mail without quickly delketing (er...deleting, that is)
several messages, only to discover that at the end of some joke or social
comment a Sr relevant comment was made; wanting to respond to a post
only by the time you read through everything you have no time left to
respond before heading back to whatever passes for reality in your life;
irritated sys admins who decide youre spending to much time and taking
up too much space (there are 4 people at UPS on this list, and though
the sysadmin hasn't ever actually done anything to us, I once caught
an irritated earful about this); though I haven't ever thougth about
it, if some are so unfortunate as to have to pay for access to a
terminal, then the extar (extra) cost would be very annoying, to say the
least.

ANd it is a ridiculous answer to respond to these problems with, "Just
get out if you don't like it." I, and I suspect others, like the
Shadowrun material on this list. Andf we even like the jokes and social
commentary when it doesn;t interfere in our lives. Let me say here
that I have been on this list for just over 10 months now, even though
I haven't posted for the last 4-5 months (mainly because of the
time restraints). And it didn't use to be this way. Perhaps because
so many have been on so long that they have become comfortable friends,
as well as gamers comparing notes.

I do not want to shut anyone up. But things can be done to alleviate
the problems. Some well-intentioned but sure to be annoying to some
sugfgestions:

Read all your mail before responding, so as to prevent multiple people
from saying the same thing in response to a question.

The amount of quoting on this lst has exploded the last few months--please,
no more than a couple of lines are necessary to jog the memory of those
who care.

The most recent complaint could have been avoided if Granite had compiled
all his comments into a single post, titled in the subject field something
like "Multiple one-line jokes and agrreements wion (er. on)several
topics."

If the only thing in your post is a jole (er...joke) or social dialogue
amongst friends, allabel it as such in the subject field. While this
may seem corny, there have been days where there have been more jokes
and friendly dialugue that (than) there have been SR related posts,
and digging through all that in a hurry is very frustrating.

(Sigh) This has not been an easy letter to write, because I have
always enjoye d the list and I don't want to become the next target for
our defenders of free speech and the right to spout. But I do wish
that some people would recognize that very real problems can be caused
for legitimate users of this list by all the chit chat. I should
also point out that it has gotten better since what I caonsider to be
a low point that occurred 2-3 weeks aog (er...ago).

I hope that people will realioze this is a constructive attempt to solve
a problem, rather than yet another asinine and insulting flame about
all the "uselesx" posts. I enjoy the banter on here as much as I can,
but I no longer have the time to deal with it every day.

Sincerely,

Steve (But I LIKED the Ivory Tower) Huth

Further Reading

If you enjoyed reading about Full Mailbox, you may also be interested in:

Disclaimer

These messages were posted a long time ago on a mailing list far, far away. The copyright to their contents probably lies with the original authors of the individual messages, but since they were published in an electronic forum that anyone could subscribe to, and the logs were available to subscribers and most likely non-subscribers as well, it's felt that re-publishing them here is a kind of public service.

Thwap!