Steve Climpson wrote: >What I was saying in my own bluff way is that people really should take part >in the discussion & not sit on the sidelines taking all & offering nothing >in return. >Someone asked if I would like all the email traffic that 1500 posters would >generate. Bring it on I say. It could be fantastic.
It seems to be a common complaint that too many lurk and contribute nothing. Many lurkers are new to the whole system so might not know enough yet to contribute. Some might be somewhat shy and timid. Other people get very keen on forums and they can become a hobby, making them quick to read all the mail and jump in. For my part, I read or scan over most of the letters but rarely write in, and the reason is this. I get the digest, so many of the letters can already be a day late. I then tend to go through the digests in batches. If I have not collected the mail for 2-3 days for some reason, then a letter might be 5-6 days old before I read it. On the imaging and photography side, I find I could answer a lot of the questions, although very little when it comes to the mechanics of the latest 2000EXYT camera whatnot. But invariably there have been 3 competent answers to the query in 20 minutes, leaving little more to be said. The quickest has been an answer in 24 seconds - Awesome; must be a world record, subject to the computer clocks passing a drugs test. I am sure there are many people who are just not quick enough on the draw to make contribution from them worthwhile. There have been numerous occasions, however, when I have replied to people off-list with a minor addition, after the original thread has gone a bit stale. I am sure there is quite a lot of extra help this way. Not directly related, but I have a query about the list. How come postings end up on the web. Do a Google search for some of the topics discussed and Prodig correspondence comes up. Isn't this meant to be a private forum only available to subscribers yet it ends up in the public domain? Child porn sites seem to remain secret and hidden for years before the police track them down and just try getting an individual web site spidered so quickly. Yours, Duncan Wherrett =============================================================== GO TO http://www.prodig.org for ~ GUIDELINES ~ un/SUBSCRIBING ~ ITEMS for SALE
