Date:         Sat, 3 Jan 2009 12:22:43 -0800
Reply-To:     Robert Fisher <refisher@MCHSI.COM>
Sender:       Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From:         Robert Fisher <refisher@MCHSI.COM>
Subject:      The 'tone' of the list; was RE: List filtering thoughts
In-Reply-To:  <495fa961.1917400a.14ed.ffffea7d@mx.google.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII"

As I recall there was a lengthy thread on this subject two or three years
ago; the predominant opinion then was that 'all tech and no social/community
makes the list a dull place', so to speak. Several posters described
experiences on lists that went hard-core technical and essentially died off
shortly thereafter.
I agree that the balance as it has been over the years is livable; when you
have 800+ people in one room you have to expect and to some extent make
allowances for a certain amount of predictable and normal human behavior,
and the fringes tend to define the middle. The odd individuals taking it
upon themselves to correct the behavior of the others according to their
interpretation of 'the rules' tend to be more annoying than effective.
On a practical level the NVC threads make no difference to me. For several
years I read every post, saving many that I thought I'd need later; I'm a
fast reader and I wanted to be sure I wasn't missing anything important. I
don't own a camper and I probably never will but at this point I'd almost
bet you I could rehab a Dometic or replace a pop-top from memory. Along the
way I've picked up all kinds of non-Vanagon related information that turned
out to be interesting or useful in other areas of my life. Reading this list
every day is like being at University. Much of it is mundane but if you keep
one eye open you never know what little nuggets one of the resident eggheads
will turn up that will affect your thinking.
The point is that I would selectively delete, but even with that 99% of the
posts went into the can whether NVC or not, and the NVC posts have always
been such a small percentage of the whole that, as I said, it never made any
practical difference.
These days I tend to skim and scan; I kind of feel like I've seen it all and
more than once, but I'm still looking for the odd thing that jumps out at
me. However I now delete every post, either on the spot or at the end of the
month when I clean out my mailboxes. I have another account running on Gmail
(as many of you do) that is archiving the posts for me.  I think the list
archives at this point are practically useless due to the likelihood of
repeatedly timing out, and also because much of the information is dated. If
you look back at some of the old posts you see repeated references to
people, parts, procedures and companies that are no longer relevant due to
the passage of time. With the seasonal cycling of topics on the list
everything worthwhile gets repeated anyway, so to my mind the best
information is from the present to three-to-five years back. 'Bandwidth' is
something we should keep in mind as a courtesy to those on slower
connections (this long post notwithstanding : / ), but as a concern as it
relates to the archives I think it's rearranging deck chairs at this point.
I sometimes marvel  at the continued length and depth of, for example,
Haynes' or Drillock's umpteenth post detailing the same technical procedures
for the umpteenth time, but they keep at it. You'd think they'd save
themselves some wear and tear and just write up a procedure paper and post
it; I hope they at least cut-and-paste. On the other hand I think this list
would be a much poorer place without the contributions of Unca Joel, or Joy,
or John Rodgers; those whose posts are often less technical but that flesh
out the list's 'personality', and put a more human voice to our machines and
those that use and sometimes even live in them.
I think ultimately lists such as this are held together more by the sense of
relationships and community than by the function of utility; however for
this list in particular I would say that technical utility is the skeleton
upon which the flesh of community cleaves. Obviously without balance we are
a either a structureless blob or a dried out pile of bones. The ebb and flow
of human interaction will be what it will be and it's inevitable that
occasionally the oddball situation will pop up, but for the most part I
think we've done as good a job as could be expected at governing ourselves
with minimal oversight.

Cya,
Robert

-----Original Message-----
From: Vanagon Mailing List [mailto:vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com] On Behalf Of
David Beierl
Sent: Saturday, January 03, 2009 10:07 AM
To: vanagon@GERRY.VANAGON.COM
Subject: Re: List filtering thoughts

At 12:19 PM 1/3/2009, Allan Streib wrote:
>I think lists like this are more than just knowledge resources, they are
>a community of sorts and as such we need to allow (within reason) some
>amount of more "social discussion".

'Zackly.  This list has shown great discretion and wisdom in avoiding
and quickly squashing political topics; in instantly ejecting the
heater expert and unregenerate Nazi when he showed his colors; and in
maintaining a civil tone.  But in my experience over ten years or so
it has always been a social list, not strictly a technical one, and I
don't think the relative amount of "off-topic" posting has changed
all that much over that time.

There has always been a certain tension between the folks who want a
strictly focused and/or all-technical list, and those who like myself
consider the list an avenue of friendship and contact among a
like-minded community scattered across the country and to some extent
around the world.  I believe this tension has served the list well,
keeping it to a middle path.  I think that (judging by behavior) Ron
Lussier and Tom Carrington were of similar mind, and that Jim Arnott,
though restrained in his actions, was/is very much of the
highly-focused philosophy, and trying to keep a middle road has taxed
him severely.

I personally was dismayed by both the tone and content of the
"charter" recently imposed, though I understand the frustration that led to
it.

The subaruvanagon list is a good example of a highly focused list,
and it works well.  It is a technical list concerned with suby engine
conversions into vanagons, and anything else is decidedly off-topic;
and the line is sharply and consistently drawn by the moderator.

With this list it has been more the case that certain subjects are
absolutely off-topic and forbidden, and then there is a sort of
sliding scale that centers on Vanagons and slopes gradually off in
all directions from there -- I think this is appropriate.  Vanagons
are largely a state of mind of Vanagon-minded people, and they tend
to have other interests and values in common, so it's natural for
them to befriend each other.

My two cents...
David


--
David Beierl - Providence RI USA -- http://pws.prserv.net/synergy/Vanagon/
'84 Westy "Dutiful Passage," '85 GL "Poor Relation"