Theos-Talk Archives (May 1996 Message tl00819)

Alexis asks,

> I have a question: "Is a puzzlement", why is it that these folks complain
> when the four or five of us exchange short, sometimes funny, and sometimes
> pithy comments on the subject of theosophy or allied subjects (and
> everything is an allied subject) and yet they would not complain were those
> messages to be long, involved, extremely complex discussions that no one
but
> ourselves could either comprehend or be interested in?
> When two people become involved in a long multi-message game of
> quote-counter quote it can use up lots of message units. Why is that
> acceptable and the short but pithy message not so? Could it be, perhaps,
> that it is not so much the messages as the messengers?

Speaking for myself, it is NOT the messengers.

1)  Short, "pithy" responses (jokes) are hard to follow, because I have
usually forgotten the last 10 antecedents.  There are even times when Chuck,
Alan, Alexis, etc. have gotten lost in their own short quips, and have had a
thread of "huh"?  "What were we saying?"  That speaks for itself.

2)  The long quotes, however tedious they may be to some, are at least
impersonal and delving into the questins of the philosophy, history, and
major players in our movement.  And this list is for discussion of Theosophy.
 "Allied subjects" should perhaps be taken off-list unless a good number of
people are interested.  I may not contribute much to JHE's and Kim's
discussion, but I, like many others (Dan, Nicholas, Eldon, etc.), are
following it closely.  Including the discussion of TSR.  And while they two
of them (JHE and Kim) get snippy at times, it is mostly focussed on the
materials, backed up with quotes.  If Alexis were to jump in to the
discussion with a point of view, and documentation for WHY he thinks that
way, I would not suddenly start complaining that the thread was annoying.

3)  On my machine, I cannot SEE who wrote the message before I open it up and
read it.  Nor does the Macintosh computer allow a filter.  All my messages
from theos-L are downloaded and show for author "theos-L."  I do see subject
headings, and after reading several posts on a topic I don't like, I learn to
delete those subjects on sight.  But often the subject headings are
inaccurate, way out of date, etc. and so I end up missing good stuff and
reading crap.  What to do?

The only solution is: ask people to THINK before they post and ask
themselves, "Who is going to benefit from this post?  Is it worth sending to
100 people?"