Re: A modest proposal

[Michael Cantrell <macantr@uidaho.edu>]

This proposal of a voluntary limit of one posting per day (for most
occasions) to this listserve sounds excellent to me!  The shear number of
posts right now is too much for the time I can devote.  I feel that I'll
be better informed if I can read all of fewer posts rather than only a
percentage of more posts.

Mac Cantrell


On Tue, 30 Jul 2002, Kenton Bird wrote:

> 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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