And I'm glad you felt comfortable enough to speak your mind :)
And I guess, that's what we're trying to get here... Is NANFA
members on the list speaking their minds, and giving us feedback
about what can make this a pleasurable experience for everyone.
So if you have more, please, please, please... Do not hold it back.
OR any NANFA member.
I posted the guidelines that the Board has voted to be the
_suggested_ guidlines for the list... We haven't heard a peep. Is
that because people don't like them, don't care, don't feel they
can change anything? We don't know... But we'd like to :)
I've posted them to the NANFA server now:
http://www.nanfa.org/listguidelines.htm
To be honest, I feel we're fumbling through this horribly-in-times,
and I'll be the first to admit it. But it still seems worth the trouble,
if people can keep the goal in mind, as we've made huge progress
in the last month-in-cutting down on the off topic posts and
increasing "list diversity" so to speak. On a "day" scale, we now
have more individuals, contributing to more on-topic threads, and
only making a moderate amount of posts to do so.
A good "diversity" for our group seems to float about 4-6 running
threads per day, with 10-15 individuals making posts, and 20-25
total posts. This is what we would like to achieve, I think you'll
all agree this is a noble and productive goal.
In contrast, a flame war has 2 threads per day, with 6 individuals
and 45 posts. It gets even more frustrating for NANFA leadership
when 4 of the 6 aren't NANFA members and the topic is basically
flat out non-compliance with the law etc, yet uses our resources,
and may taint the image of what NANFA stands for to the short
term observer. I have been guilty of contributing to this in the past,
wether making a stand for noble reasons or not, I admit that. I was
a part of the problem, because the problem was only going to go
further with more discussion. So I realized I should use my
time elsewhere.
While making my little epiphany, similar frustrations were revealed
by other Board members, and we agreed we needed to get back
loose control over the content posted using our organization's
resources. We made some discussion, made a decision, made a
request on the list and then it was wide open to whatever came our
way.
At first, the people clearly outside the reasonable boundaries were
the only complaints; I recieved a fair amount of off list email saying
they were glad we had taken initiative. My diversity scale petered
out this week, I think that says "Whoa... Too far guys!" or people
have just gotten busy being outside, instead of tied to the computer.
I'm willing to go for "too far". And we're also willing to entertain
comments from NANFA members about any of this. On list,
off list, BOD list, wherever.
One thing I think we can agree on right now is... When someone
we feel has gone over a line, we need to contact them and whoever
continues _off_ list, until it dies, with a post saying so in the BOD
email list so we don't duplicate and become, well, annoying :) I think
that's fair. Like I said, to me its "just the Internet" but I've learned
that's only my experience. Other email lists will dive, stomp, smash on
bad topics (sign up for a birding e-list and post "what can I do about
cats visiting my birdfeeder" if you'd like to see how nice we've been
about all of this ;) and we don't need to do that here, nor had we
planned on it.
So... Have-in-all of this. Suggest, slash, scream away. :)
Thanks for reading so far,
Todd
----- Original Message -----
From: "Harry Knaub" <harryknaub-in-suscom.net>
> I've been thinking about this the last couple of days, and I don't know if
> this will get things stirred up that shouldn't be, but it seems that if
> people are going to play politics with our natural resources, then we have
> an obligation to speak out. And I don't think that Bruce really crossed
any
> line of decorum by making a wise crack. It's been established that certain
> members of this list don't want to here any political discussion, but I
> think that when it concerns native fish it should be discussed. We just
> shouldn't get nasty or make personal attacks. Maybe I'm too much of a free
> speech advocate. That's my two cents worth. Also, I feel better for having
> spoken my mind.
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