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Cathy S. Zazueta says: csz -at- cerf -dot- net
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I am almost always in favor of posting to the list instead of responding
by private email. The purpose of a mailing list, after all, is dialogue.
It's very easy to delete a posting if the subject line is relevant.
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I am in total agreement, with one exception: the chastisement of netiquette
breaches.
I'm pretty new on the lists, and maybe not as thick-skinned as some others,
but it strikes me as a rather cruel way to learn: public humiliation for
ignorance (not deliberate impropriety). This type of dialog takes awhile to
get the hang of; it is indeed a different communications medium--even from
old-fashioned letter-writing, because things can escalate so quickly with
the instant access, instant response mechanism inherent in email.
The GIS-L list had an incredible occurrence recently, where the flamed party
tearfully apologized and stated that his job was actually on the line at his
company, because his defence of his product was used as a personal attack
against him. They finally rallied, and posted many pleas for him not to quit
the list, and apologizing for their behaviour, but MAN it was UGLY. If some
well-meaning instructionalists (is that a word?) had emailed him privately,
he would have suffered his humiliation, posted an apology, and everything
would have been fine. He would have learned the lesson without the extra-
ordinary trauma he was subjected to (yes, I'm ending on a preposition--this
is colloquial dialogue ;-))
One other exception, however: I do not pay for my email currently, but
sympathize with those receiving extra-long articles, online newsletters, etc.
and agree with those that suggest a posted address to contact or from which to
ftp.
This has been my $1.44 Canadian :-(
Gwen ("Thanks for everything else, though, it's great!") Gall
ggall -at- ca -dot- oracle -dot- com
Date: Tue, 12 Jul 1994 11:36:07 EDT
From: Gwen Gall <ggall -at- CA -dot- ORACLE -dot- COM>
Subject: Re: WHAT MOVES ON SCREEN?
I have been following another on the copy editors' list, and have found that
it has converged interestingly (for me) with this one, and gives me the
opportunity to share a recent learning opportunity about spatial reasoning and
cognitive linguistics, and the spatial metaphors we use in everyday language
(which is indeed applicable to WHAT MOVES ON SCREEN?--and _especially apropo
to the wonderful response from someone who said that they move their head,
not the paper, unless hung over ;-) )
Intro. info.: the thread involved the overabundance of information in special-
ized fields, and how certain serendipitous fusions of info. from disparate
areas of study can give rise to new knowledge and understanding (the example
was the paleontologists' search for evidence of a meteor to explain dinosaur
extinction, which turned up after being buried for 20 years in an obscure
geological journal).
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bodafu -at- ccvax -dot- sinica -dot- edu -dot- tw
