From: "Steve Haywood" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > 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.
Some years ago, at the time of the Great Flame Wars, quite a few people criticised this list (which at the time was twinned with the Usenet uk.rec.waterways, IIRC) was getting bogged down in in-group chat, much of it off-topic. Some regulars, partly in recognition that there was some justice in the criticism and partly wanting to get away from the atmosphere of the GFW, set up a separate list for general and off-topic chat. Others of us were allowed to join that list subsequently, and it still thrives. Indeed some of the people (me included) who commit a fair bit of inconsequential wibble here are also members of that other group, so perhaps we ought to be a bit more disciplined about what we send to which group. And perhaps some others would like to join us in the other group - membership there is by invitation and the normal routine is for a proposer to suggest to the group the name of potential recruit and unless there are any objections, an invitation to them will follow. > 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; I see no point in doing as a matter of pedantry, but sometimes a typo positively invites an amusing response, and I (a serial committer of tyops) see no harm in responding accordingly. > 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. It depends what you mean by "making a big deal of". Correcting matters of fact seems to me a totally appropriate thing to do, as long as it's done in an informative spirit rather than one of reproof. Oh, and it's always open season for good-humoured digs at a certain Baronet of our acquaintance. Incidentally I thought he made a very good job of his evidence to the EFRA Select Committee - even the bits I didn't agree with. Mike Stevens narrowboat Felis Catus III web-site www.mike-stevens.co.uk Defend the waterways. Visit the web site www.saveourwaterways.org.uk
