Some people (like me!) may not realize their posting habits to this list make it difficult for others to follow along or contribute constructively. If you see someone who is posting in good faith but may not realize they are exacerbating a problem, the easiest thing to do is to let them know (and then ignore them after!).
Nathan
On Jan 25, 2008 9:49 AM, Birgitte SB birgitte_sb@yahoo.com wrote:
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@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@gmail.com:
On Jan 25, 2008 6:10 AM, daniwo59@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
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