A modest proposal

["Kenton Bird" <kentonbird@hotmail.com>]

Visionaries,

>From 1982 to 1992 (with the exception of about 10 months in 1988-1989), I 
edited the opinion page of the Idahonian (the predecessor to the 
Moscow-Pullman Daily News).

One of my regular correspondents was a now-deceased retired school teacher 
from Elk River, D. Beverly Hughes. She signed her letters (usually 
postcards) "D.B. Hughes."

When I arrived that the newspaper, Mrs. Hughes sent a postcard almost every 
day, and we picked a representative one to run about every two weeks.  The 
paper's publisher and I discussed how to use our limited space for letters 
to best advantage while promoting a healthy exchange of viewpoints.

We finally established the "D.B. Hughes rule," which limited writers to one 
published letter per week -- less often if there were letters awaiting 
publication from less-frequent writers.

The result was that Idahonian readers were exposed occasionally to the 
provocative, humorous and sometimes outrageous ideas of Mrs. Hughes, but 
were not bombarded with them. Mrs. Hughes quickly adapted to this rule, 
becoming more selective about which of her ideas she commited to a postcard.

Vision 2020 is a different forum than a newspaper editorial page, of course. 
  "Space" is not a limiting factor, but the time of subscribers is finite.   
With all due respect to the diversity of views expressed on the list in the 
past month, the volume is simply overwhelming for many of us.

Consequently, I propose that writers adhere to a self-imposed limit of one 
posting per day, choosing to frame issues in a way that speaks to a larger 
audience.  (There might be exceptions to this in the days before an 
election, so that a charge doesn't go unanswered before voting.) Individual 
retorts to prior posts could still be sent directly to the writer "off 
list."

I submit that the quality of commentary on the list would be higher if 
everyone had to choose their words carefully and/or wait 24 hours before 
sending another reply, instead of just firing off repeated  rebuttal 
messages.

I welcome responses -- one per day per person, of course.

--Kenton



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