One point that I have thought about, and talked about privately with
some of you, is (particularly on a list like this) how much time --
how many person-hours -- is spent on each email. An email list where
the entire staff and chapters officers are subscribed means that each
email is read by a few hundred people, many of whom are getting paid
and/or who have serious institutional responsibilities. So even if a
long mail only takes 5 minutes to read, parse and think about, how
many person-hours (and in turn donor dollars, lost productivity, or
time taken from other things) are being spent? Let's be optimistic and
assume that any given email is only read by *half* the list. 5 minutes
x 100 people = 500 minutes / 60 = 8.3 hours.

So one full workday -- 8 hours of our collective time -- for each long
email. That is a heavy burden to ask of ourselves, and a heavy
responsibility on those of us (like me!!!) who go on at length in
their mails!