At 5:51 PM -0800 2/21/99, Das Devaraj wrote:
> Shouldn't newbies be allowed to quote
> a whole 10K msg and add the sole thoughtful comment "I agree" and
> post to the whole list? Won't it be at least bearable, if each of
> those zillion messages are nicely formatted with different colors,
> fonts and blinking?
If someone can do something stupid with a technology, should we
simply ban that technology outright? Did we do away with pagemaker
and desktop publishing just because some well-meaning idiots took "I
have 50 fonts and by god I'm going to use every one of them!" to
heart?
No. This kind of argument is silly. You don't define a technology by
what can be done wrong with it, and then refuse to adopt it for what
it can do right. Unless, of course, you're looking for strawman
arguments against the technology. But that's wrongthink.
Will these new technologies be misused? Sure. Should we not adopt
them, then? No.
Heck, current email lists are misused. Let's shut them all down.
Email itself is misused by the spammers. Since someone CAN misuse it,
let's shut email down, too.
Or maybe we should figure out how this stuff can be used properly,
and teach users how to do so, realizing some users refuse to be
taught and deal with it. Imagine if, since Pagemaker got misused by
some users as they were figuring out the new technologies, we simply
gave up on Pagemaker.
Fortunately, that didn't happen -- instead, people learned how to use
it well, and experts helped teach the non-experts. Maybe there's a
hint in there somewhere.
> when they send an email. If there is a happy compromise (or even a
> workable one) that list-admins and graphics happy users can come
> to, it may be a step in the right direction.
One really easy one -- posting size limits. Most of us do that today.
Let users experiement. Don't let them experiment without
restrictions. And learn how the system works and doesn't, so we can
build help systems to help newbies use it well. Just like we have
with mail lists. And email. God forbid, I wrote the first USENET
netiquette doc in 1984, and it's still in use today with minimal
changes -- and it's been translated to at least 17 languages that
I've found out about, and used by literally thousands of
organizations worldwide. Imagine if, instead, we had realized that
users were misusing USENET and shut it down instead of trying to
improve it...
Nah, maybe that's not a good example. (grin)
> The subscribers are the folks who make a list what it is.
> IMHO list managers should do what they can to make the life
> of somebody who does not understand anything other than GUI, at
> least bearable.
Exactly, Das.... the technology isn't good or bad. It's how it's
implemented, and how users are taught to use it....
--
Chuq Von Rospach (Hockey fan? <http://www.plaidworks.com/hockey/>)
Apple Mail List Gnome (mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED])
Plaidworks Consulting (mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED])
<http://www.plaidworks.com/> + <http://www.lists.apple.com/>
Featuring Winslow Leach at the Piano!
