Date: Sun, 29 Sep 2002 21:53:49 -0700
Reply-To: Mike Miller <mwmiller@CWNET.COM>
Sender: Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From: Mike Miller <mwmiller@CWNET.COM>
Subject: Good luck Frank/archive use
In-Reply-To: <53.1d1af020.2ac92ed6@aol.com>
Content-type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII"
Good luck on your plumbing repair. Hope it's not like home plumbing where
it takes three trips to the store to fix.
I have had several explanations given on how to use the archives. What I
get back, when I'm lucking enough to actually make contact, are lists of
messages. Generally these are not of much use since I don't know which of
the many many messages actually applies. FAQ's would be nice. Especially
if someone cut down the messages to the pertinent info and references them
in the FAQ's for those who wanted fuller explanations.
Problems are who does it? And who keeps them up to date? Not easy and
certainly time consuming.
Wish I had answers instead of questions.
Mike
On 9/29/02 9:36 PM, "Frank Grunthaner" <FrankGRUN@AOL.COM> wrote:
> Gentlemen and Ladies too,
>
> For the last several months I have been lurking, watching the list but
> without either the time or the motivation to respond to several of the
> developing issues on the list. This lack of time has been related to a
> particularly stressful proposal and experiment period at the lab, doctor's
> orders to accumulate at least 8 hours of sleep and a narrowly missed heart
> attack. 90% arterial blockage and now sporting two shape-memory alloy springs
> in my critical plumbing. The white garbed individuals bustling around me
> while my attention was riveted on the 30+ inch monitor displaying real time
> images of the heart, strongly suggested that my long standing diet of
> sausage, leberknoedel suppe, emmentaler cheese with salt and pepper and
> Augistinerbrau had to change and quickly.
>
> In any case I'm inclined to address several issues that have really bothered
> me concerning traffic on the list. One of the most serious was the recent
> exchange on the need for posters to access the archives before posting
> questions. Several individuals suggested that this should be a prerequisite
> etiquette prior to posting, while others suggested that the archives were
> impossible to access and anything should be game. Then for the final
> indelicate thrust --- one purportedly elderly poster held that the archive
> statement was just a form of snobbishness directed by individuals with more
> accumulated list time than others at the unwashed neophyte.
>
> As one of those who has programmed the phrase "please check the archives"
> into a function key on my keyboard, I feel compelled to offer an explanation.
>
> 1. For topics in which I have had little or no substantive input, I would
> offer this rejoinder when the issue has been extensively covered in the past
> with a volume of material that might be digested by the poser in 30 minutes
> as opposed to hundreds of explanatory postings. Further, based on the past
> info, the poser could potentially offer a new question that would add
> substance to the debate.
>
> 2. For topics that I have tried to discuss at length, particularly those that
> might elongate the nose of conventional wisdom here, I frankly don't have
> time to repeat the exercise. Many of those posts residing in the archives
> took me one or more hours to input. (I've never been successfully accused of
> brevity!) I do not maintain a personal archive of those posts on my computers
> because I know that the archives are there.
>
> 3. For so many of these topics, I find myself saddened by the realization
> that so much of the effort that I and others have put into these posts is
> lost to those who simply don't have the interest or courtesy to check this
> wealth of material.
>
> 4. I agree that there is much BS in the archives and a more effective FAQ
> would help the problem. I had volunteered to begin marshaling a new effort to
> update the FAQ. Stan Wilder began the effort and has made a good first cut at
> the areas he had proposed to coordinate. Unfortunately this coincided with my
> heart problems and got relegated to a secondary status for me. I'll return to
> the effort shortly.
>
> 5. Finally, I will remind you of a standard admonition to entering graduate
> students:
>
> "Careful! Remember 6 weeks in the lab can easily save you a day in the
> library!"
>
> Frank Grunthaner
>
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