Date: Thu, 30 Sep 1999 12:57:32 -0700
Reply-To: Derek Drew <drew@INTERPORT.NET>
Sender: Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From: Derek Drew <drew@INTERPORT.NET>
Subject: How To Make The Vanagon List Almost Zero Burden On Your Time
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
People sometimes ask about how others deal with the varying signal to noise
ratio on the vanagon list and the huge amount of traffic. The fact is,
there is no reason to feel any pain upon the traffic if you set things up
correctly.
A happy relationship to the list is one in which the list can take up no
more than 10 or 15 mins of your time *per month* if do not want it to take
up more. It is also one in which you read almost *no* stupid posts. The
Vanagon list does not have to be a burden not matter how much mail it
produces.
Here are some general principals:
1. DO NOT USE DIGEST MODE. People think that digest mode saves them work
because it sticks messages in one big file that they can read. But digest
mode actually creates additional work because the messages are not bunched
by topic properly, and it is harder to scan them quickly all together.
2. MAKE A VANAGON MAILBOX. This means to use an email program such as
Eudora that can recognize that a message is coming from the vanagon list
and the program moves all your mail into this mailbox you create
specifically for Vanagon mail. The beauty of a Vanagon mailbox is that you
never know what is in it until you are in the mood to read Vanagon mail.
The Vanagon list creates zero burden on your normal life until you choose
for it to come into your life.
3. READ YOUR MAIL INFREQUENTLY. Try not reading *any* vanagon mail for a
week or two. You can even go a month! I think two weeks is the right
number. This allows the messages to bunch up, and you can then arrange them
by subject and delete all subjects that do not interest you. (see next message)
3. WHEN READING VANAGON MAIL ARRANGE POSTS BY SUBJECT. This is vitally
important. In late versions of Eudora, such as versions 3 and 4, you look
at all mail in the mailbox and you can click on the subject heading. This
makes all the messages arrange themselves by subject. You can then select
all 50 messages with the subject line, "List Vendors Suck" all at once,
very fast. Hit the delete key. Then find all messages with the subject line
"Horray For List Vendors" and hit the delete key. Then find all messages
that say, "Here is where *I* live!" and hit the delete key. This process
can take only seconds until you are left with only those messages in which
you have a current interest. I personally read syncro-related posts and
posts about the area between the transmission and the motor, as these
subjects interest me.
4. CREATE BOZO FILTERS. This means that if one particular list member
annoys you with silly stuff, set your mail filters to send his email
directly to the trash bin rather than to the Vanagon list email. You will
never even know they existed. If one objected to list vendors, for example,
one could send all their messages immedaitely to the trash. I do not do
this myself, as I consider their participation helpful and appropriate. But
the point is that it is easy to do.
5. DO *NOT* READ MESSAGES TO SCAN THEIR CONTENT. Many email programs like
Eudora and Outlook allow you to view the content of each message as an aide
to screening. I view this as a serious mistake. It is inefficient and
intolerable for people like me with time pressures. It will take you a lot
of time and you will begin to hate the list. Consider instead screening all
your mail by subject heading only. This is the most efficient way to filter
it. One other way to filter it is to decide what you are interested in, and
then have the filters robot in your email program do the work for you. For
example, if you own a diesel, for example, you could even set up a robot to
pick up all messages with the word "diesel" in them and then put these
mjessages into a special Vanagon List Diesel mailbox. That would become
your preferred mailbox.
6. OPTIONAL: CONSIDER CREATING YOUR OWN VANAGON ARCHIVE. I have every post
from the Vanagon list since its first day on my laptop. After messages go
in the trash, my mail filter sweeps them away and puts them in a big
mailbox named Vanagon Archive. If I wish, I can search this archive with
the crude search functionality in Eudora, or use Alta Vista's hard drive
search eingine to do sophisticated searches (get the search engine for free
from Alta Vista).
By the means I have discussed, I never even see messages saying "You people
are losers" because I never select out their subject headings. I am only
dimly aware of a recent increase in list traffic with high noise levels.
The silly thread on where people are located and their biographies, and in
which I participated, was a particularly dumb thing and I deleted all these
posts without reading them.
I would quit the list too if I were on digest, as this is a prehistoric and
very onerous method of trying to be on this list. I suggest anybody on
digest either get off digest and into a good email program as fast as they
can, or get their head examined for why they would stay on the list and
tolerate the difficulty of using a digest mode.
This message is a revised and reposed version of a message I sent about a
year ago. Many list members wrote to me at that time saying it was
valuable, so I have reposted it here for the benefit of others to see.
________________________________________________________
Derek Drew New York, NY & Washington, DC
drew@interport.net
'90 Syncro Westfalia...
...seen off-road at http://www.tiu.net/~des/vw/drew/index.html
Also seen at:
http://4wd.sofcom.com/VW/snow.html
http://4wd.sofcom.com/VW/Campers/Campers.html
Note: most valuable Vanagon sites on the planet (for owners) are:
http://gerry.vanagon.com/cgi-bin/wa.exe?S1=vanagon
ftp://gerry.vanagon.com/pub/