[PEN-L:6803] Re: Shawgi Tell's low signal to noise ratio

[Blair Sandler <blairs@xxxxxxx>]

It has been written:

>I hit the delete key every time I see Shawgi's messages, primarily because I
>hate being preached to -- even if there is a vague chance I might agree with
>the message.  However, It is getting very, very tiring having to monitor my
>entire message list for possible shawgi's before reading said list,  This is
>especially true since my time is incredibly limited right now.  How about, we
>all tie up Shawgi's mail box with static?????  Make this problem a two way
>street?



I, too, delete most of Shawgi's messages without reading. I occasionally
read or skim Shawgi's posts for reasons similar to those mentioned by Susan
Fleck, Bill Mitchell, Bill the Cat, Paul Zarembka, and Walter Daum (did I
miss anyone?). My personal opinion is that there is a higher signal to
noise ratio in Schniad's and Bond's posts then there is in Shawgi's (though
I by no means read all of their posts either). The few Shawgi posts I look
at are mostly unobjectionable, but rarely new or interesting, at least to
anyone who's studied any Marxism at all. So, Shawgi, you're mostly
preaching to the converted, and as others have noted, we mostly hate
preaching.

Actually, I should be more precise: some of Shawgi's posts are purely
ideology; others contain information about current events, as list members
have pointed out.

Susan: I don't believe one must be an anarchist to oppose posting limits.
I'm not and I do.

Shawgi: Marxism is about social relations, but with only one exception I
can think of (prior to this current flap, and contrary to the statements in
your responses to Michael and others about your presence on the list), you
seem averse to relating socially to anyone else on the list. It's kinda
weird, don't you think? I mean, people even talk about you in the third
person, as if you're not on the list, because you never respond. What
gives? (I'm not convinced by your comments about your willingness to
participate in discussion.)

Michael: I would have first asked Shawgi to reduce the number of posts, to
use more discretion, and to engage in discussion, rather than not to post
at all. This I think at least partly addresses Sandy and Doug's important
distinction between discussion and broadcasting. (And by the way, I am one
of those who does pay for net time.)

On the one hand you say you "do not want to get us tied up in endless
debates about who [should] and should not be here and whom we will and will
not tolerate"; on the other hand isn't it important for people to weigh in
on this matter in order for us to get a sense of the sense of the list?

All: For those of you who really never read any of Shawgi's posts, and who
use Eudora, it is easy enough to filter any message with "Shawgi Tell" (or
any other text, for that matter) in the "From" header directly to the
trash. You need not even ever see the header, let alone the message text.
(If you do this, the first action performed by the filter should be to mark
the post as "read"; then transfer to trash. This avoids a dialog box if you
manually empty Eudora's trash.)

On a Mac, if you're not using Eudora, it's pretty easy to write an
AppleScript (or QuicKeys macro) to do the same thing.

Blair




Blair Sandler
blairs@xxxxxxx