[Xmca-l] Re: Not too long and not too short

[Annalisa Aguilar]

Hi,

In case the "someone" comment was directed to me, I suppose my adversity to reproducing the real world onto a listserv is that it is a form of projected utility overlap that is rife with problems, problems that can't be solved. 

I mean, we could all head over to Second Life, and I'd thought to make that comment but I figured that given the tone of late I would be seen as flippant. I didn't want to seem a technocrat. There are many wild and wondrous worlds at Second Life and each person has an avatar, which would likely provide a sense of direction and space to conversations. But is it really necessary?

The problem I see, which I thought was kind of obvious and I don't mean to be condescending, is that every person will have the space of what is imagined as it appears for that person. 

I don't know how saying this list is a play-pen, a rodeo, the Old Globe, a bus stop, a paintball pit, a watering hole, a break room, Twitter, Facebook, Tinder, Foursquare, The New York Times, The Guardian, FOX News, Le Cage Aux Folles, a teddybear's tea party, or CERN's Large Hadron Collider will change the form and function of this email listserv.

So do I inform people in the Newcomer's page: Imagine you are in a Parisian Cafe on Tuesdays, but on Wednesdays it's River Rafting, but on Saturday it's the Heavyweight World Championships! And if you transgress these rules, you will be knocked into next Wednesday to Your Room Without Any Supper And No One Will Talk to You.

I would like to suggest that we leave people's imaginations alone and let each person bring and take from the list what they hope to bring and take. And if they want more, not to chastise them for uttering, "More please."

The need to constrain the speech of others is very curious. I don't understand the purpose and where it comes from. As far as I know there is a 1st Amendment, and I'm glad for that because it breeds tolerance and I'm all for that. Given the nature of inequality as of late, I find the narrowing and censoring of speech to be the first step in inequality, and as far as I know, reproducing inequality is not the founding tenets of this list. 

But let me say, with utmost respect, if I have offended anyone in how I craft my speech, I suggest you make an email filter with my name and send my posts post-haste to the trash can. That way only the people who wish to engage with me will do so and those who don't won't know what they are missing! 

How's that for a compromise?

What I find more problematic than long posts are the long trailing chains of previous emails that are not removed when hitting the reply button. I am guilty of this and I'm attempting to make it more a habit, but sometimes I fail. I can't find the feature in the web client that will stop that behavior. The posts get so chopped up and dismembered that all they do fabulously well is eat up computer disk space; I can't usually read them. 

I wondered if that is what people meant when they talk about long emails? Because I like to give people the benefit of the doubt, that's what I figured was intended. 

Anyway, for me the list is a gallery of thought, and so for me that is what it will be. 

Kind and gentle regards on a Tuesday in a Paris Cafe,

Annalisa