Hi all,
Couple of points :
1)If I have to wait until the full digest comes then I have to scan for
those threads I am following - sometimes the digest is massive. But if I
get cc'd I see where the discussion is going in 'real' time and can ensure
I know the score.
Recent posts on religion and spelling a case in point. I had no idea until
this morning's digest that so many people were pissed with the discussion
going the way it did, by which time I had already posted. Whats more, the
digest is just that, a digest of the ongoing discussions.
How often have I responded to a question posed in the digest then with the
next digest found multiple replies prior to mine, which were evidently
posted prior to the digest being generated ?
Alot of other lists either send out each mail to all subscribers (eg.
mod_ssl mailing list) or advise if someone has posted a response in the
same thread or as a reply to yours.
2)People do go off topic occasionally, I don' t think its such a bad thing,
we are not robots, there are a number of things which we 'bring to the
party' if they are relevant. Whether something is relevant or not can be
pretty subjective.
Free software is a community of people.
User Groups are made up of people. Of course there needs to be some
discipline to avoid tons of off -topic stuff cluttering things up, but
people first!
3)If people are resigning from the list because a thread went off topic
then I am very disappointed. Surely a complaint/flame against the culprits
is better. (I can handle it, no asbestos required). Or to put it another
way :Grow up and Get a Life!
Finally, I don't actually think the thread was that far off topic. I could
go into a number of (arguably interesting) parallels between the history of
the church and the evolution of free software.
But who cares!
BTW, for what its worth, I am an atheist. (Or is that too far off topic,
maybe I should resign from the list...)
Cheers
Earl