List behaviour

[Martin Gutkowski <webmaster@xxxx>]

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Mike G Moderator of the Week

Hi all

Toby's comment on list ettiquette has got me thinking. He's absolutely
right in what he says. I've seen so many innocent questions or
discussions turn into increasingly severe disputes. The "Vendors and
other scammers" being a recent case in point. Toby's own efforts with
his TABs a while ago seemed to cause a witch-hunt at the time which left
me feeling amazed he didn't drop the DML there and then. Here's my 2p on
the subject (or 3cents at today's exchange rate :-)

Personally I rarely get "moderated out". In fact the last time I recall
having a message stopped _was_ deserved and carried a disclaimer that I
expected it to be (did you know there's a "Mr Fusion" on the wall of the
Nostromo in the opening scene in "Alien"? - ha! got it in this time
:-P). In that case I got a polite reply that my message was being
declined. Fair enough. (I've also had the same experience as Walter of
replying to a message after imbibing a jar or three and reading my post
the following day and wondering who got at my PC to type that
drivel....)

One of the high points of Memphis for me was meeting all the people I
"know" off the DML. An equal pleasure was meeting all the people I
DIDN'T know off the DML. I lost count of the number of "lurkers" who
knew me by following my posts. This was very gratifying, but in EVERY
case, I was wondering why this person didn't post also, because they
obviously had a lot to say and would have a great contribution to make.
Basically it was for fear of the stern replies that too often fly
around.

I like to think of the DML as a room full of like minded people all
chatting about DeLoreans. Of course there are differences of opinion -
but it's all too easy to forget that through text alone, it's impossible
to convey the "feeling" that speech and body language adds to a
face-to-face conversation.

Memphis was an eye-opener for meeting people I'd always "labelled" as
being of a certain personality. Boy was I wrong! I'm sure John Hervey
won't mind me putting his name on that list! Throughout the show I was
getting needled by grinning comments about our recent exchange with
regards his Fan Fix. Thanks to Bill Lane, we made our peace on the first
morning, had lunch, and for my part, gained a completely different level
of respect :-)

I think that posting to the DML is very rewarding IF you say only what
you'd say face-to-face. And on a personal note, sometimes I think a lot
of these misunderstandings are caused simply by people not thoroughly
reading the posts to which they are replying, and in a lot of cases, not
re-reading what they just wrote _before_ posting it.

That's just my opinion.

All the Best

Martin
#1458 - Just got my seats back from Belfast - Mmmmmmmm :-)