vision2020
Re: A modest proposal
With apologies to Joe Simon, I've been "Drowning in a Sea of [Email]," and
this suggestion looks like a life preserver for my vision 2020 subscription.
Bruce Livingston
----- Original Message -----
From: "Kenton Bird" <kentonbird@hotmail.com>
To: <vision2020@moscow.com>
Sent: Tuesday, July 30, 2002 2:20 PM
Subject: A modest proposal
| 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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