I would encourage people who feel this way to set up
their mail to ignore those that they find too often
heated and/or off-topic. If there is a thread that
really interests me, I tend to read it through the
archives to make sure I don't miss anything. But even
just having two people ignored makes this mailing list
a different place. And then maybe it will be easier
to reply on-topic as you won't realize so much has
been said.
Birgitte SB
--- Jerome Banal <jerome.banal(a)gmail.com> wrote:
Seconded.
The only things I feel comfortable posting here are
2 lines long answers or
are answers to post that are left unanswered since
several hours.
Coming with a thoughtful/insightful answer takes
time, but in the mean time
you can be sure that 10 mails will have been posted
on the thread, posts
that you will need to read to make sure you are not
making a redundant post
or missing an important idea. And often, the subject
has drifted so far that
such a post would seems by then off-topic compared
to the heated posts of
that time.
So I think most peoples now remain silent and just
try to keep themselves
informed but do not voice their opinions as it feels
a waste of time.
And I live in England, so the language is not even
much a problem for me.
Just imagine peoples for which this list is the main
daily contact with
English language...
Jerome
2008/1/25, Delphine Ménard <notafishz(a)gmail.com>om>:
On Jan 25, 2008 6:10 AM, <daniwo59(a)aol.com>
wrote:
> Looking over this list for the past couple
of
months, several key issues
> have been discussed. I notice, however, that
most of the discussion is
by
> members of the English projects, with the
notable exception of Gerard.
In
> comparison, two years ago on Foundation-l and
three and four years ago
on Wikipedia-l
> (pre-Foundation-l), there was much more vigorous
participation from
> representatives of other projects. In fact,
that
is what made Wikipedia
a truly
> international organization.
>
> I wonder where so many of the participants of
those discussions have
> drifted. Is the discussion taking place on
chapter lists, at the expense
of the
> Foundation umbrella, or is it taking place on
internal-l, at the expense
of
transparency.
As far as I can make out, neither.
I'd have one explanation though. There comes a
point where reading in
a language that is not yours, on a list that
sprouts an average of 20
emails of more than 2 pages a day, very often on
a
level of English
that is hard to follow, just prevents one, as a
non-English speaker,
from participating. I consider myself as having a
rather good level of
English, but sorry, when you get a thread
dominated by lengthy English
speakers, I just give up.
Apart from that, I find that people who have
little to say on a
subject, or who actually answer "on the
side", are
somehow also too
present, and answer faster than their shadow [1],
often depleting a
thread of its substance in the very first emails
to veer towards
uninteresting side conversations, or even
considerations that have
nothing to do with the subject at hand. Which,
for
those who might
have something to say about a subject but need a
little time to
formulate their answer, means that they'd be
going
back to a dead
thread when they're ready to participate.
To summarize: Level of English and fast pace of
the list. I would
personally not look further for an explanation.
Delphine
[1] see
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lucky_Luke
--
~notafish
http://blog.notanendive.org
NB. This gmail address is used for mailing lists.
Personal emails sent
to this address will probably get lost.
_______________________________________________
foundation-l mailing list
foundation-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org
Unsubscribe:
_______________________________________________
foundation-l mailing list
foundation-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org
Unsubscribe:
____________________________________________________________________________________
Never miss a thing. Make Yahoo your home page.