Signal/Noise

[doktor at primenet.com]

Jay Carlson writes:

>In general I've been disappointed with the overall signal to noise
>ratio here.  Perhaps I've been hanging out with the technologists too
>long, but at least they're pretty good at taking flames to email, not
>quoting an entire message to add a single sentence of reply, not
>replying to messages that it's obvious somebody else is already going to
>reply to, formatting messages nicely, usw.

Disagree strongly, particularly in light of an experience I just had on one
of those lists run by technos.

Last week I posted a query to a website critique list about the risks
involved in putting my five-year-olds' pictures up on their web pages.  In
a twinkling one of the jackbooted "List Guides" who moderates the list
snipped that thread, ruling it to be "off-topic" and threatened to sanction
anyone who responded on-list to it.  I was forbidden to post any argument
to the list as to why I believed my post was well within the scope of the
list's topic, so I could not appeal for the support of other list members
or even poll the list for concurrence/dissent from the List Guide's ruling.


The whole affair made me more appreciative of the P-list environment, where
the scope of our topic is viewed expansively, where posts that initially
seem to come from left field (if not outer space) often wind up shedding
unexpected light on TRP's works, where people are allowed to be their
eccentric selves, where content is esteemed more than form.  Yes, it's
frustrating when easily-made, impossible-to-refute charges of racism,
sexism and antisemitism roil the Pynheads, but that's the price we pay for
freedom of thought.  I know Jay wasn't suggesting that we appoint Platonic
guardians to "guide" the discussion on this list; I'm just pointing out
that the lower limit of what is an acceptable signal-to-noise ratio is a
pretty subjective thing. Having just experienced a list where everything is
on-topic and nothing is interesting, the P-list feels pretty good.

*sniff, getting all sentimental*  Ha!

--Jimmy
  http://www.angelfire/com/oh/Insouciance/index.html

I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by law school . . . .