I would like to ask (and I hope it's ok with the management to do so!) that people consider whether their note is personal/private or not. We do have the ability to respond privately to a note, whether it's to offer a compliment or a concern. Brainstorming through a creative block is useful for many.
Exactly. I think repeated compliments are as tedious for general perusal as complaints. If someone puts up a picture of their latest creation and offers information on how they researched it, or how they made it, or how they wished they had made it in hindsight, or where they bought the materials, that's substantive. Endless I-like-your-outfit-too emails are not. And although I do delete the vast majority of my emails by subject line, it's harder to do that when the subject line is "Elizabethan dress," or some other topic that interests me, but it turns out not to be a discussion of Elizabethan dress but a series of me-too compliments on someone's creation. The subject line does not always describe the content.
I am on an extremely active list for translators from foreign languages, which has a very useful system. They require every subject line to be prefixed with one of a series of standard headers designated by the group's official guidelines (and emailed out with the usual official reminders), so that people can filter messages in or out of their inboxes at will. Of relevance to h-costume, they have a CHAT: prefix, a HUMOR: (or HUMOUR:) prefix, and a COMP: (computer problems) prefix. All the prefixes are followed by colons, which makes it easier to have a filter that does not confuse unwanted messages with wanted ones.
For h-costume, I'd certainly recommend a CHAT: prefix. The translators' group also has standard subject headers related to language pairs, abbreviations of things like German>English and French>Italian. (Members very often ask each other for help with specific words, phrases, and sentences.) I don't think it would be such a bad thing for h-costume to have subject headers for things like Elizabethan (ELIZ:), but they would have to be carefully thought out. However, I don't think they are essential, because it is more likely that many people are interested in multiple costuming periods, or in multiple techniques (sewing, emboidery, crochet), than that many people translate to and from numerous languages.
I already have a CHAT: filter-out set up with my ISP for the translators' group, which means I don't even have to download about 50 messages a day. If the h-costume moderator would set up and enforce a prefixing standard for h-costume, even just a CHAT: prefix, that would certainly be convenient. An OFF-TOPIC: prefix and a COMPLIMENTS: prefix would also be great--unless those are included in CHAT:.
Signal-to-noise ratio is a big reason for people to leave groups and start their own. I think it's great that people discuss 5th century Fredonian necklines even if I don't read those notes. Too many personal notes, and I agree with Lalah:
If I read a ten-page discussion on Fredonian necklines, even if I had no previous interest in the subject, that's the kind of thing to get me interested in it.
I normally love this list and would hate to lose it as a valuable resource.
So would I. Fran Lavolta Press http://www.lavoltapress.com _______________________________________________ h-costume mailing list h-costume@mail.indra.com http://mail.indra.com/mailman/listinfo/h-costume
