Mission of the American Dialect Society--the "so what?" quest

[Barnhart]

Yes, this might help.  It would be just as easy for someone to place it in
the subject line as  a prefix.

I have been receiving lately my ADS-l posts without anything more than
American Dialect Society in the "from" slot.  I used to get the source as
the writer's name which helped me to ignore those I didn't care to read.

Regards to the inclusionists,

David Barnhart




dave at wilton.net writes:
>---------------------- Information from the mail header
>-----------------------
>Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>Poster:       Dave Wilton <dave at WILTON.NET>
>Subject:      Re: Mission of the American Dialect Society--the "so what?"
>              quest
>-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>> Cohen has made a good point here.  However, I wish to put in
>> my 2 cents here, too.  I presume that all the matters not
>> directly dealing with the narrow notion of dialect in the
>> society's publication are, for some, a waste of space.  How
>> sad that the listserv must be so narrowly conceived. As a
>> long-term member of the society, I would feel very much
>> alienated if the society's meetings were similarly confined.
>
>I concur. I would also like to reiterate Jesse's comment about this being
>a
>low-volume list. ADS-L averages something around 25 posts a day. I
>typically
>get three times that amount in spam alone. Deleting the unwanted posts on
>ADS-L is not a major burden--especially since most of those who post them
>use subject line conventions that makes them easy to identify.
>
>It might be a good idea, however, for ADS to promulgate some formal
>subject
>line conventions to enable automatic sorting. Subject line markers, (e.g.,
>"DIA:" for posts about dialect or "LEX:" for lexicographic data) would
>allow
>those who didn't want to read posts about certain subjects to filter them
>out without a thought.
>