On 01/05/07, Ken Hornstein <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: A lot of good stuff about the attitude of long term existing members of the list to newbies, especially hirers.
I think we should do well to take notice of what he says. Sometimes on this list there's a sort of 'clubiness' which is off-putting even for those of us who have been posting for a long time. I don't know about newbies - but frankly, I don't understand the half of the comments that pass between certain people at various times. They're obviously based on some shared night in the Swan or the Boat or whatever, but the overall effect is to make the rest of us feel we're outsiders to an internal core membership which are actually the people the group is for. The reason for this, I think, is because newcomers, arriving on the canals for the first time, find it has a very strong real-life community which has been around for decades; and they feel themselves excluded, a climate which they themselves reflect when they feel confident enough after a year or two in the cyber community. I hope no-one takes offence at this thread, but we are seeing ourselves as other see us, and we would be unwise to not to try and learn from the perspective it brings. No Ken, it's NOT just about boat owning and the minute it is, I'm outta here too. Incidentally, like Ken, I don't, and I have never, seen the funny side of publicaly correcting people for trivial mistakes of grammar or spelling; or worse making a big deal of matters of factual knowledge, when that knowledge isn't based on any real experience but a couple of clicks of Google. Steve [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
