Thomas Lee Elifritz wrote:
"Get into the habit of trimming both headers and article body as topics
drift. And threads can diminish."
I used to observe these very elementary rules to perfection. In fact, I did
it better than anybody else on ARBR. As a former professional librarian I
have a natural genius for classifying and editing. But I have since changed
my mind about much of this. I now believe it is better to have several
newsgroups involved in almost all threads as well as not to do much editing
at all.
The reason for the above is that I saw a rather small newsgroup destroyed by
a criminal vandal troll. Some of us fought the good fight, but the newsgroup
was just too small to withstand an extended campaign of criminal vandal
trolling. If a newsgroup has many threads and other newsgroups involved, it
is far less likely it will be destroyed by a criminal vandal troll.
This is not to say that we should not use discretion when considering which
newsgroups to post to nor does it mean that messages can run on and on and
get overly long. But on balance, I believe it is better to error on the side
of too much rather than too little. I believe especially if the topic is
general and not specific that it is OK to post to multiple newsgroups. I
also believe that too much editing is far worse than too little editing or
no editing at all.
The messages of Vandeman and Curtiss are quite instructive in this matter of
editing. They do no editing at all and it does not slow me down. It means we
can linger over a single post or just quickly get to the new material if we
want. But in any event, everything on their posts is open and above board. I
never get the impression that one is being unfair to the other. This is very
important as most editing is done for exactly that purpose, i.e., to make
you look good and the other person look bad.
I do commend both Vandeman and Curtiss for their courage in not doing any
editing. They do not behave like cowards and scoundrels like so many do who
are heavily into editing. That was always my one and only complaint about
Tom Sherman (other than being wrongheaded about everything under the sun -
except recumbents). He knew how to edit to make you look bad, yet was
intelligent enough to know that it was wrong.
NYC has had a very good influence on ARBR by posting to multiple newsgroups
and also by being somewhat general in his comments which can have wide
applicability. We do not want to get so narrowly focused on a topic or
subject that it becomes exclusive to a particular newsgroup. The general is
always more interesting than the particular and will attract more posters. A
newsgroup that is too small is not worth much.
Regards,
Ed Dolan the Great - Minnesota
aka
Saint Edward the Great - Order of the Perpetual Sorrows - Minnesota