Re: [ARSCLIST] The case for message boards.

[Brandon Burke <burke@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Mike,

On top of accusing others of not knowing how to use their email clients,
i think you're ignoring some key points here..

* There are entirely too many private conversations on this list;
that is, conversations consisting of several posts but only three or
four participants. Other than some obvious exceptions, conversations
of this order are generally inappropriate for a public forum.

* Search: As i mentioned earlier, and others have agreed with me,
the search function of the ARSClist archives is a wreck. Results are
displayed at the message-level, meaning that tracing back the
chronological order of a thread is both a guessing game and often
impossible since any one email can have multiple replies. (Email is
web-like in this way, whereas message boards simply display each
reply in chronological order. End of story.)

* Print: Your email client's "sort" function does nothing but group all
messages with a like subject line together, meaning it is still impossible
to print the entire contents of any one thread without repeating several
messages and wasting a lot of paper in the process.

By all accounts - gleaned both from off-list responses to my original post
and general observation - the members most in support of keeping this
thing email-based post messages to the list almost daily and very likely do
not
search the archives or print the contents of entire threads; the latter two
options being our list's most valuable features to users seeking advice on
the handling, processing, digitization and/or maintenance of recorded sound
materials.

Let me pose the question again: is this list a country club or are we
providing
a service for the sound collections community?

Brandon Burke



On Mar 5, 2007, at 11:57 AM, Mwcpc6@xxxxxxx wrote:


***********************

What makes you think that you have to "keep up" with it? If you don't want
to read something, just don't read it!

You are saying that, just because you use a mail service that forces all
emails to be downloaded, you must deny me and any one else the opportunity
to
browse the wide range of topics that appear on these lists.

My service shows only the headings, which can be sorted by sender,  time, or

subject. The [List] tags sort out the various  lists.  It takes a few
seconds
a day to scan the lists, of perhaps  hundreds of posts, pick a subject that
might be of interest, then page  through all the posts on only that subject.

Nothing is downloaded  or saved that I don't want. The rest can be deleted
from
the service  without downloading, with a single mouse click.

On some lists I may read only one or two posts out of hundreds in a week,
but often the ones I do pick up are of great interest. It really bothers me
that
someone would deny access to this resource just because they don't have the

tools to use it properly.

Mike Csontos
<BR><BR><BR>**************************************<BR> AOL now offers free
email to everyone.  Find out more about what's free from AOL at
http://www.aol.com.

____________________________________
Brandon Burke
Archivist for Audio Collections
Hoover Institution Archives
Stanford University
Stanford, CA 94305-6010
vox: 650.724.9711
fax: 650.725.3445
email: burke@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx