SC - Non-generic SCA-Cooks' Full Contact Rant

[Philip & Susan Troy]

Aoife The Optimistic (well, usually) wrote:

> Date: Wed, 7 Jan 1998 19:50:58 -0600
> From: L Herr-Gelatt and J R Gelatt <liontamr at ptd.net>
> Subject: SC - Out-of-Office
> 
> >
> >Date: Wed, 07 Jan 1998 00:01:31 -0400
> >From: David Young <David.Young at rich.frb.org>
> >Subject: SC - sca-cooks V1 #520 -Reply
> >
> >I will be out of the bank until Jan 8. Please contact Mr. Tom Cherry if you
> need assistance.
> >===============
> 
> Ok---everybody send Mr. Young a virtual pie in the face at pieface.com
> (Pennsylvania Pie Board). Better make it a Mr. Cherry Pie (lol). Maybe then
> he'll think twice abut polluting the list so much with auto-responses.

Thank Whoever he is only subscribed to the Digest! Woulda been really
ugly if he'd been on the regular list!

Which leads me to my next trick...the Noble Lady Aoife, in a subsequent
post, writes:

> So why am I saddened? What wrong has occurred? I think you can guess.
> Several of my friends and folks I admire have been unsibscribing from this
> list over the past few months. Why? Because even with the digest version,
> the volume of mail has markedly increased. This would not have been a
> cathartic occurance, however, if those posts were intelligent discussions of
> historical food and cooking (or SCA food and cooking). Unfortunately, many
> of the posts in my digests are running gags which properly belong in the
> private mail. Many are emotional outbursts to percieved slights. Many are
> "me too" messages. Many quote previously published posts in full, including
> all the unsubscribe messages tacked on at the end. Some days I spend hours
> going through digests, with very little content to show in the end.
> 
> I know personally of three good gentles who have unsubscribed to this list
> due to volume, and have heard another intends to do so soon since it
> overwhelms his mail server. I humbly submit to you that three good cooks are
> three too many to lose. That's three in my area of the known world. How many
> do you know of? 
> 
> Please, dear cooks, if you value this forum, consider your words before you
> hit "send".  And, when appropriate, please consider taking the jokes and
> flames to private mail. If you must apologise for the bandwidth you use,
> perhaps it could be of better use on  more appropriate subject matter.
> 
> Thank-you for listening.

Well, Lady Grouchy Spoil-Sport Aoife, all I can say is...all I can say
is...I agree. It's not my place to say what is or isn't appropriate for
this list, nor my right to demand that certain types of posts be
eliminated. [Insert Deity or other Intervening Force's Name here] knows
I've been guilty of enough of that sort of thing in the past, not to
mention my endless rants ;  ) . But the fact is that I _do_ find the
volume of mail, even the digest, rather difficult to get through. I
always try to keep the number of unanswered e-mail messages in my Inbox
down to 20 or so, at the most, some of them requiring fairly long-term
responses. Before switching over to SCA-Cooks' Digest, I had well over a
hundred pending responses, and after switching to the Digest, I had
pared it down to something like 65. Obviously the numbers suggest that
this isn't all the fault of unnecessary posts to SCA-Cooks; if the bulk
of the mail were fluff of some kind, I wouldn't even think of
responding, since I simply don't have time.

And yet...I do, if nothing else, have to support Lady Aoife's
sentiments. I usually don't have a problem with a spouse taking a long
time to download messages: more often my wife just assumes that I'll
tell her if there's something for her. It's just that I miss the ability
to respond to a post to the Cooks' list without having to cut and paste,
and change the subject header, and so on. I no longer feel I have my
finger on the pulse of the list, so to speak. The Digest, for all its
good qualities, is kinda like being a corporate shareholder, and getting
Board Minutes by surface mail. Unfortunately there doesn't seem to be an
effective compromise.

If I may be forgiven for seeming to pick on one particular type of post
others may value, just in the interest of fairness and propriety, could
we consider taking the brewing and distilling posts over to their
respective appropriate lists? Posters on these subjects have made it
abundantly clear such lists exist. It often seems that volume on the
cooks' list would be reduced by around 25 to 30 % if the brewing stuff
were relegated to the appropriate lists. Interesting though it usually
is, of course.

Then there are the various humorous posts. Similarly, I love them, and
can't find it in me to be too critical of those who are only trying to
brighten our day. But again, I will point out that the humorous posts,
and the responses to them, are taking up a significant portion of the
bandwidth for the Cooks' List. Can't even guess on a percentage; it
varies.

I truly hope everyone understands I value _everything_ I receive in my
e-mail box, perhaps excepting the pyramid schemes and ads for XXX (and I
don't mean distilling) Web sites. But as with anything else of value,
its value is diminished with excessive volume. I honestly don't know
what to suggest that would solve my problem, or Lady Aoife's. I can't
just suggest people post less often. What I can suggest, though, is that
people think carefully before sending.

Geez. Two rants in under a week. Sorry about that. I can't really say
I'm not presuming on the patience of the list readers. I'd prefer to
think of this as a polite request for a favor, though.

Thanking all in advance,

Adamantius
troy at asan.com
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