From:	Mark Hull-Richter <mhr AT sparc DOT SanDiegoCA DOT ATTGIS DOT COM>
Subject:	Re: News Group Results
To:	sandmann AT clio DOT rice DOT edu (Charles Sandmann)
Date:	Mon, 27 Feb 1995 10:04:55 -0800 (PST)
Cc:	djgpp AT sun DOT soe DOT clarkson DOT edu, dj AT ctron DOT com

In a recent emailgram, you (Charles Sandmann) wrote:
>
>Once again, this discussion is *NOT* appropriate for the list, so 
>send mail directly to this email address (sandmann AT clio DOT rice DOT edu) if
>you have any strong opinions or brilliant ideas.  Thanks.
>

Actually, IMNSHO, from what I have seen over the past month, about 50%
of the discussions posted to this mailing list are not appropriate for
it (e.g., MS-DOS, and most recently, GIF/JPEG questions that have
little or nothing to do with C, GCC, DJGPP, etc., per se).  In
addition, the signal-to-noise ratio is extremely low, and I believe
that the number of mailings is higher than 26 per day (although I
haven't tracked it so I can't prove it, but it sure feels like it!
:-).

I know I'm probably going to get a lot of mail talking about how useful
the list is, etc., etc., - this is useless because I'm not suggesting
that the list is useless, just that it is overly noisy, so please use
standard email etiquette and don't reply for at least 24 hours so
you'll have time to think about the flame you're planning right now and
decide with a cooler head (tomorrow) whether it's REALLY worth sending
or not.  Also, that way you get a chance to think over what I propose
below.

Now, I'm not normally the kind of person to bitch about something like
this and just let it go - I have a proposal which would solve a) my
irritation with the flood of email that this list generates and b) the
problem with the S/N ratio.

Here's what I propose:

1) If you ask a question to the list, be prepared to track all the
answers you get and post a summary after a suitable period of time, say
24 hours (! :-).  Be sure to include something that indicates whether
the responses generated solutions or not (and if not, why not).

2) If you have an answer, send it DIRECTLY to the asker/poster and DO
NOT REPEAT do NOT NOT NOT cc the mailing list.  Trust that the asker
will post the answer summary when they have a working solution (or have
exhausted the suggested responses and need more).

This would be considered just plain good netiquette in a formal
newsgroup, and since this mailing list is not moderated, I think we
should all exercise some self-moderation and try to avoid mass
duplication of response.  A classic example of this is the just-past
spate of eight virtually identical answers to Jon Keene's question
about kbhit() - would it not have been better for the eight responders
to send their virtually identical responses to Jon and let _him_ post
what he learned/gleaned from them?  I think so.

Thank you for your consideration "and your continuing support."

-- 
 ++==     AT&T   Mark A. Hull-Richter, Consulting Engineer  (310)524-5782 voice
+GIr==   Global  Teradata Decision Enabling Systems Center   427-5782 VoicePlus
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