> I am frustrated by all of this but also recognize that we should never
>expect to achieve consensus on this topic. I suggest
that
>we abide by the plan that irritates the least number of listmembers....
Rick, your right. Off topic subjects do, and will come up on this list. Some
are appropriate, others are not. We might want to
think of this list as a car club party. When at a party, if a group of "party
goers" are discussing something you find
uninteresting you meander over to another group.
I think the key here is how much "off topic" subjects are appropriate, and how
many messages on that off topic subject will the list
tolerate? I believe everyone agrees this list is, first and foremost, an MG
list.
When reading my MG list messages I hit the delete key often. That comment is
not intended to offend you, or any other posters. My
interests are varied but do not include every topic that comes up on this list
(for instance I enjoy racing an MG, but have no time
for watching races on TV).
There are things that can be done to make navigating through the list messages
more efficient. We have been through this before and
nothing ever changes, but here goes. Most email clients have the ability to
sort out messages. It is pretty simple to have all
mail from the MG list go to a particular folder in your email client. Once
they arrive in that folder your email client probably
has the ability to sort those messages by subject. This is what I have done,
and I know many other "listers" have done this also.
This method allows messages to be deleted in quantity. All F1 mail can be
deleted with one press of the delete key. There's only
one problem ... and it happens to be my pet peeve ... (no groaning here please)
Don't change the subject line on your messages. I know this is more difficult
when responding to a message that is read in the
digest version of this list (you might try cutting and pasting the subject
line). But when responding to the "traditional" message,
if the respondent would just click on their "reply", or "reply to" button, all
the subject lines would be the same, therefore all
the messages would be grouped together. As an example of what seems to happen
on this list, the original message starts out with a
subject like:
"F1 race last weekend", several messages are posted with that subject line,
then...
"F 1 race last weekend", becomes the subject, then ...
"F1 race last week end" ...
"Last weekends F1 race" ...
"F1 race"...
"Did you see the F1 race"...
"Did you see the F1 race?"
"F1"
It turns out these are all the same thread, not an evolution of the original
one, but because the subject line changes, they do not
lend themselves to a nice "clean" sort. Had the subject remained the same, the
whole "mess" could be deleted at once. This might
make off topic messages more palatable to many of the listers. If all the off
topic messages had the same subject line it would
make no difference (to me) if there were 100 off topic messages, I wouldn't
have to read any of them, they could all be deleted with
one keystroke.
Just a comment. I checked, the F1 topic didn't have as many variations of the
subject as I have listed, that is only an example of
what happens.
Well now that I've "vented", this message probably has been a waste of time and
bandwidth. We will still have off topic messages,
and few listers will take the time to think about how they process their
messages, or respond to messages.
Who on this list can remember the suggestions about logical subject lines ...
(that's a rhetorical message, please don't answer it)
Larry Hoy
Still wading through the F1 controversy
PS Rick, few will abide by "the plan that irritates the least number of
listmembers"
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/// (If they are dupes, this trailer may also catch them.)
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