Mailing List Etiquette

[billroper]

What a wonderful day to post my first-ever LiveJournal poll!

[Poll #836121]

Comments

[catalana.livejournal.com]

Of course, since sometimes I don't catch up on my mailing lists for quite sometime, I often take option 4: delete the whole @#$@#% thread while wondering why we got off on this subject to begin with...

[billroper]

My mailer doesn't thread (or at least I don't know how to make it thread), so I get to delete the individual messages. :)

[catalana.livejournal.com]

Neither does mine...so actually I delete everything with the same subject heading. Which sometimes is a mistake, because sometimes people have wildly changed the topic while leaving the same subject heading. Oh, well. It's probably not the end of the world. *grin*

[backrubbear.livejournal.com]

It makes a huge difference.

When I do bother to read the list you're probably talking about, I'm usually a few months behind at *best*. ctrl-d (thread delete) cleanses so much stupidity with a single keystroke.

[billroper]

I believe that.

[backrubbear.livejournal.com]

If I might make a suggestion:

1. Find a threaded mailreader that you like. Failing that, find a threaded newsreader that you like and gateway these types of lists to news. (Old trick.)
2. Lag the conversations by a day to three days. Even on that list, you'll find that the threads take shape and are deletable by that point.
3. Use ctrl-d or its equivalent with wild abandon. You'll feel better.

[smallship1.livejournal.com]

I am learning that the safest and sanest course is just not to get involved...

[scarfman]

I picked the second option, but that presumes I have something to say on the off-topic subject which is not in fact a given. If I had nothing to say I'd act per your option three.

[alymid.livejournal.com]

option 4 - drop a note to the list admin suggesting that they ask the posters to move on to another topic.

[daddy-guido.livejournal.com]

I change the list to daily digest, then conveniently forget to read it.

WHEE! more free time!

[kevinnickerson.livejournal.com]

I wonder just what you could be thinking of. :)

[billroper]

Moi? :)

[jrittenhouse.livejournal.com]

agh. I picked #1, should have said #2. My bad.

[backrubbear.livejournal.com]

I'm sure most of us don't have to guess.

[colinlamb.livejournal.com]

You forgot the option where you tell the mailing list to get out of the dark ages of the net, join the modern era, and update to a forum system. Then a moderator can easily move off-topic posts to the correct forum board, all posts will be threaded for ease of reading, and being web based, doesn't fill up your email box and you can peruse it whenever you have the time to kill.

[tigertoy.livejournal.com]

What about the option where you grind your teeth in frustration, assuming that no matter how off-topic the other posters are, you'd be thrown into the piranha tank if you expressed your true feelings or even call people on their grotesque errors of fact, yet you're too much of a masochist to stop reading? With an added dash of wondering how it is that some people can seem to be so intelligent until certain political topics come up, and then suddenly turn into drooling idiots?

[billroper]

I try to avoid that. Usually hitting the delete key helps.

Usually. :)

[madfilkentist]

None of those answers really describe what I do, so I didn't answer the poll.

First, what I do depends on my position within the list community. If it's one I mostly lurk on, I'll just ignore the off-topic messge and probably all responses to it. If it's a list where I'm a community leader, I'll point out that it's off topic, generally not entering into the discussion either on- or off-list. If the message is factually wrong as well as being off-topic (e.g., someone has posted Internet Rumor #827), and it would be bad for people to be misinformed, I may point out the error as well as mentioning it's off topic.