RE: ADMIN: Civility and content
I agree with Eric that Techwr-l has a problem. Despite the fact that the
list has been very valuable to me and that I have made a number of
contributions I hope have been of valuable to others, on most days I am
so busy writing about or implementing content and knowledge management
systems, that I just delete the whole techwr-l digest without even
bothering to open it. Although most of what I write is now either
academic or what might be called meta-documentation (i.e., about how to
structure and manage technical documentation systems), techwriting is
still the underlying foundation for what I am doing now, and I think I
can occasionally contribute something of value to the profession.
I have had some very useful debates with Andrew Plato, where he has been
his well known acerbic self and where we were on absolutely different
sides, but on this issue I think he has cut to the crux of the matter
Eric raised. Andrew's suggested solution is thoughtful, mature, novel
and practical. I love it!
Techwr-l is too valuable to let it become a chat room for frustrated,
irritable and angry techwriters with too much time on their hands (yes I
know the job market is bad and technologies are changing, but this
doesn't change the fact that what frustrated hot-headed people write
generally isn't worth reading). Limiting the number of posts people can
make is a very interesting approach. I agree with many that Andrew's
idea of limiting posts to one per person per day might be too limiting
(but would be interesting to try!), 3-5 would inhibit the chatterers if
not the name callers, but if the Ray's software is sophisticated enough
I love Kat Nagel's ideas of providing him with a decrement button he can
use to blip those who persistently waste bandwidth. Perhaps a loop could
be added that would gradually relax the restriction if the decrement
button wasn't pushed again.
Limits aren't the solution. They throttle creative expression and spontaneity. (Some may think that this is what needs correction; it's *not* either of these, but behavior that needs correction.)
Let Eric bounce whomever he thinks is in violation of the spirit of the list. Period. It is not a Democracy, and shouldn't be conducted as such.
You'd be surprised how quickly people will "correct" their behavior. Or leave the list.
Simple solution. Eric's workload might be a bit more at first (sending warnings, etc.), but after the membership has caught the "drift", his work would settle down to a "once-in-a-while" job.
Dave
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References:
RE: ADMIN: Civility and content: From: HALL Bill
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