Here's the problem: Everyone (and I include myself here, never fear) loves to hear themselves speak/write/etc; people who post things love feedback. But *third parties* (that's everyone except the sender and recipient of such exchanges) have only modest interest in the exchange. (Facebook has created an admirable user interface for everyone to indulge in this apparently universal inclination with its "like" function.)
But it doesn't scale well to mailing lists - if everyone did it, the list would drown in a sea of single-word messages. Applied directly to us, here: if person A posts something they find of interest, and person B thinks it's wonderful, it's obviously of interest to both of *them* if B says "excellent!" But it's only of secondary interest to the rest of us. It does provide some incentive for everyone else to, say, follow A's story/link/whatever, so it's of some use, but it's not particularly *interesting*, is it? In an effort, then, to make everyone happy (quixotic quest #97) I'd like to encourage everyone to do a bit more than say "yay!" and instead say something about *why* you like the thing, what it means to *you*, how you'll use it... anything, really, except a single adjective. Look at your post from someone else's view and ask "is this interesting, and moving a discussion along? Would I want to open this email and respond?" If the answer is "well, not really" then consider how to change it to make it so. A mailing list is not Facebook, it is not Twitter, and it's not even a comments section on a website; in theory, we're here to *discuss* stuff. Maybe it's a dinosaur, on its way to extinction, and no one wants to do that any more, but I think there's still value in it. I'm going to lobby for a different mode of communication here until I'm the only one left. :) Anne
