From: Katharine Thayer (kthayer@pacifier.com)
Date: 03/14/03-06:57:25 AM Z
Just to add to what Dick said: Early in my tenure on the list, a kind
soul took it upon himself to educate me privately about the dynamics of
list communication. I can't say I took his instruction very graciously,
but he may be gratified to hear, five years or so later, that I have
remembered and found useful one thing he told me:
He said that threads will evolve and take off in different directions,
that's the nonlinear nature of internet communication, and that I would
just make myself unhappy if I insisted that threads should stick to the
original topic, or if I assumed that later posts referred back to my
earlier post and took them personally, when they were often about
something else and may refer only tangentially if at all to my post. It
was good advice and I have benefited by it.
Generally when the topic changes enough, someone will change the subject
line so that people who are only interested in a discussion of gum
printing, for example, can ignore messages with a subject line such as
"The Holy Grail." Even though the list is a very small part of the
alternative photography community as a whole, we still represent a great
range of experience, expertise and interests; there are students,
amateurs, teachers, and professional artists here, and different
discussions will apply to different groups. For each of us, there will
always be discussions that aren't interesting or useful to us, and
that's what the delete key is for.
Katharine Thayer
Richard Sullivan wrote:
>
> Lisa,
>
> I am not sure it "digressed." I would like to think it "evolved."
>
> Forgive me if I have mistaken your tone as one of being annoyed, for me the
> term digressed sort of implies that the topic had an agenda should have
> stuck to it.
>
> Some might consider these issues and ideas to be off topic but many of us
> here teach and write about alt photography and these issues and are
> critically important in how we present the information to students and
> associates.
>
> Cheers.
>
> --Dick Sullivan
>
> At 10:56 AM 3/14/2003 -0500, you wrote:
> >I just wanted to thank everyone for maintaining a rather long and very
> >informative conversation about gum printing before finally digressing in to
> >the theory of the differences in opinion of various peoples ideas on what is
> >best.
> >
> >I have lots of things I now need to try in my own printing.
> >
> >Thanks everyone
> >Lisa
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