[PEN-L:3060] We are waiting

[Gerald Levy <glevy@xxxxxxxxx>]

Barkley writes -- imploring me to write more for PEN-L:

> We are waiting.

You will have to continue to wait.

What PEN-L suffers from is not the absence of posts. Quite the reverse. It
is not uncommon for daily digests to be over 500K. I would guestimate that
digests have average over 250K in recent months. This is _way_ too large
for subscribers to be expected to read, engage, and seriously participate
in. (NB: a recent check revealed that there has been in recent months a
approx 20% reduction in subscribers).

So, the volume is too large.

Moreover, a lot of this volume is posted by just a few subscribers. For
instance, it is not uncommon for individuals to post between 6-15 messages
per day. It would seem that voluntary restraint (or if necessary a list
requirement concerning the maximum # of posts/person/day) is needed.

So, there are too many posts by too few subscribers.

Moreover, too much of the content of posts has nothing to do of relevance
for a "Progressive Economists Network". In fact, I would hazard to
estimate that on this "economists" list, a majority of posts are written
by non-economists.

There's way too much spam.

E.g. (yes, I have raised this issue before but it was blithely ignored):
why is there a "daily labor report" for the US sent to a list which is
supposedly international? (but which is, in fact, overwhelmingly dominated
by subscribers from the US and Canada). Isn't there *some other way* that
those who want the report can be sent it without burdening the rest of
us? (seriously, Dave: stop it!)

Then there are all of those reprints from _The New York Times_. You call
that "discussion"?

(Or long reprints from books without the author's permission and in
violation of copyright laws).

So, it is I who am waiting.

Waiting for PEN to *do something* about the above problems.

Thank you for raising this topic, Barkley.

Jerry