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Listserv Organization.
On Mon, 28 Apr 1997, Doyle Srader wrote:
> My take on the calls for listserv consolidation:
>
> Having one listserv for discussion and one for announcements probably
> won't work. We tried it: NDT-L and NDT-A. I shut down NDT-A after it
> went six months without a message.
Well...those things were certainly not working, so I agree with Mr.
Srader that there is a need for there to be a listserv for college policy
debate.
> Consolidated listservs: sure. NDT-L only exists because three years ago
> there was a CEDA-L but no NDT-L, and the two organizations were two
> separate domains, principally separated by the different topic<s>. The
> service continues to exist because there hasn't been a compelling reason
> to shut it down yet. When I leave, at the end of the year, perhaps one
> of the people here will volunteer to keep it going <don't hold your
> breath>, or perhaps I'll volunteer to keep an account here and run it
> remotely as Jamey does <even less likely -- Jamey is an iron man!>. Or
> maybe I'll pull the plug on it and Jamey can rename the CEDA list to
> make it more inclusive. Since DEBATE-L is taken, here are a few
> suggestions:
>
> DEBATER-L or DEBATING-L
>
> USADEBATE-L
>
> SPEWDOWN-L <I'm only halfway joking>
>
> IFEID-L <for "Intercollegiate, fast, evidence-intensive debate">
>
> TEAMARG-L
>
> Regardless, I've got no objection to that. NDT-L continues to exist more
> from my inertia than anything else.
True. Another name that I would be Policy-L. How about that? That
sounds like a fairly decent name...
> Now, this listserv is run a bit differently than CEDA-L, and the
> differences have both adherents and detractors. <Soapbox> I discourage
> people from doing the "Will someone from Bumbleshtup U. backchannel me,"
> for the same reason that I would discourage someone from standing in the
> middle of an apartment complex or dormitory and yelling, "HEY! JOE! GET
> OUT HERE! I NEED TO TALK TO YOU!!" It strikes me as selfishly lazy to
> drop *another* mail in four to six hundred people's mailboxes just
> because you can't get it together enough to track down one person's
> address --- usually not that onerous a task. It's no big deal when you
> do it, but when _everyone_ does it, it adds up to another dozen mails
> for hundreds of people each day.
I think that this is a legitimate concern. Possibly a concern that can be
averted (not by either of these listservs, they already do this) by
listing the names of the subscribers along with the addressess of those
people in order that a review of the membership can be done...
> </Soapbox> So I often send people who
> use such a shortcut a backchannel with the subscriberlist and a request
> that they not do that anymore. Jamey's less high-strung than I am, so he
> hangs back a bit more, and as a result, the amount of traffic between
> the two listservs is pretty different.
I have noticed this to be the case. However, I don't think the reason is
for people requesting backchannels. I think it is because there is a
great deal of personal information that comes across on the CEDA-L. Many
people may dismiss it as being no good, but if you read and get into some
of the threads, they can get kind-of amusing. For example, in the middle
of the season, there was an unusual amount of trash-talk being listed in
the CEDA-L. People were signing off with famous people's names and it was
a fun and witty discussion. I have never, ever seen anything resembling
such behavior on the NDT-L, and perhaps that is good or bad. Either way,
I think that people requesting backchannel is not the primary source.
> Similarly, we have occasionally restricted content on this listserv. On
> a couple of occasions <backchannel me if you don't remember them, but
> think you need the details> we've set this list to moderated because
> something had happened which created a delicate situation, and the
> possibility existed that someone, particularly one of the younger
> subscribers to the list, might make inflammatory comments. Prior
> restraint? Yep, but we own the printing press. You want perfect freedom
> of expression, build your own. For the record, on neither occasion did I
> withhold a single message: all were sent on unexpurgated. Nevertheless,
> a lot of people criticized the decision. Their choice. We run the
> service free, so we have no obligation to make anyone happy. To cap off
> this digression into history before it gets even further afield,
> negotiating such contrasts in management would probably be an issue in
> any fusion move.
I agree that the moderator of this list has an obligation to maintain some
decency, at least to whatever he (I am using he in this instance because
the list administrator is a man, at least that is what I have been led to
believe :) deems to be "decent."
> Whatever. If anyone gets the details worked out to everyone's
> satisfaction, let me know and I'll contact the UGA sysadmins to shut
> this baby down. I've backed out of two listservs in the past two years
> <CX-L and NDT-A> and with every shutdown I get fewer error messages in
> my mailbox.
Well, since Jamey Dumas is being mentioned so much, what does he think of
this entire thing? What do the traditionally CEDA and NDT communities
think about this course of action?
I my opinion, there is a need to consolodate the lists. I think that
there are good and bad things about both lists. I personally tend to like
the CEDA-L because it offers a wide variety of topics that somehow relate
to debate. On the NDT-L, there is a much more strict construction of what
things are written. There needs to be some sort of balance between the
two, such that, things can move forward. If the listservs are still
separate, in my mind, that creates a division of the two debate formats.
I am curious to see what others have to say about this particular
discussion.
Michelin Massey.
References:
Archive created by Jonathan Stanton (jonathan@cs.jhu.edu)
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