Email lists are full of wangst
Jul. 21st, 2008 01:12 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
firstfallenpandaIs it just a local thing or are all email lists full of stupid? It seems to be an inherent problem where you have ignorant people/easily offended people/experts on internet usage/"experts" with superiority complexes using the same forum.
On the Cape Town Freecycle list there have been two asplosions in as many months. Last month someone complained about there being too many "wanted" posts, and was flamed and supported over a two-week period by half the list. Nothing was achieved, other than to clutter up people's inboxes and piss other people off. In the latest fiasco someone posted a "wanted: job" ad and was politely told off about contravening the rules. Not even told off, per se, just pointed to the group's rules. That person then got flamed for being "heartless" and "privileged" and "against the downtrodden trying to better themselves". Now the list is full of people either pointing out the rules, or rallying to support the downtrodden and unemployed, or being anarchists against the rules and flaming the rules-posters or just flaming the list in general for being stupid no-life-having people with nothing better to do and then leaving the list with cries of "oh, this used to be a lovely place where we could get rid of stuff to save the environment". Argh.
This is not new, though. There was a blow-up on another list recently about thread-jacking and when I responded with an explanation of what it is and what netiquette is I was asked by some people to write a post on the topic. I so don't want to get involved in stupid list-flames. Srsly, life is Too Short.
There ends the rant.
On the Cape Town Freecycle list there have been two asplosions in as many months. Last month someone complained about there being too many "wanted" posts, and was flamed and supported over a two-week period by half the list. Nothing was achieved, other than to clutter up people's inboxes and piss other people off. In the latest fiasco someone posted a "wanted: job" ad and was politely told off about contravening the rules. Not even told off, per se, just pointed to the group's rules. That person then got flamed for being "heartless" and "privileged" and "against the downtrodden trying to better themselves". Now the list is full of people either pointing out the rules, or rallying to support the downtrodden and unemployed, or being anarchists against the rules and flaming the rules-posters or just flaming the list in general for being stupid no-life-having people with nothing better to do and then leaving the list with cries of "oh, this used to be a lovely place where we could get rid of stuff to save the environment". Argh.
This is not new, though. There was a blow-up on another list recently about thread-jacking and when I responded with an explanation of what it is and what netiquette is I was asked by some people to write a post on the topic. I so don't want to get involved in stupid list-flames. Srsly, life is Too Short.
There ends the rant.
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no subject
Date: 2008-07-21 11:59 am (UTC)I've held off because I myself have been tempted to put one up - I've resisted so far, but am aware it still shows I've thought about it.
My solution is to make up an e-mail filter so that anything from freecycle with 'wanted' in the subject line goes into a 'freecycle greed' folder, which I delete.
It catches 95% of the wanted ads. Sorted!
But yes - the signal to noise ratio on most such very public lists is appalling. If I were looking for baby stuff, I'd get a lot more out of it, but as it is, it's pretty grim.