Issue of Sacrifice -- ye ixquich....

[Ricardo J. Salvador]

At 10:01 AM -0500 8/11/99, XiKano * wrote:

>I say, Live It or Live With It - There's always the delete
>button, isn't there? Or is that too much of a strain?
>
>-XiKano

The "strain" comes from having to parse through all correspondence in order
to glean items of value and relevance given the PURPOSE of the list.
Mailing lists such as these are focused on specific topics for a reason,
and Joe makes a reasonable appeal for us to bear this in mind. This
etiquette means only that the purpose of the list and its subscribers are
best served by observing our guidelines, NOT that topics extraneous to the
guidelines are unimportant. However, ancillary matters should be pursued in
more appropriate contexts.

One brief example of why this is reasonable follows. Joe Campbell, Fran
Karttunen, Fritz Schwaller and others on this list have at various times
during the lifetime of the mailing list been "called to task" by other
subscribers for failing to respond immediately to specific queries. Leaving
aside the embedded assumption that such individuals are at our beck and
call for personalized consultation, this expectation fails to take into
account that most members manage busy schedules and responsibilities, and
that sifting through mailing lists for items of value and interest is not
conducive to their active participation. In the interest of rapid,
substantial and effective interaction between specialists, students and
"onlookers", it is best for all of us keep the signal-to-noise ratio of the
communcation as high as possible.

Joe has put this as gently as can be:

>>From: "R. Joe Campbell" <campbel at indiana.edu>
..
>>The list owner has asked us to recognize that the
>>"human sacrifice" theme has been run into the ground for purposes of group
>>discussion.
..
>>    In any case, we should all remember that personal remarks are
>>out-of-bounds (unless, of course, they are in the nature of a pat on the
>>back.).  My only personal remark at this point is that I'm glad that Fritz
>>has provided us this forum for the exchange of ideas, information, and
>>resources about Nahuatl and the culture associated with it.

Which raises one last point. At the moment, Fritz is on the road travelling
and has left me as caretaker of the list. It should go without mention that
the final arbiter of appropriate content is the person who envisioned,
created and maintains the list. He, likewise, has made his view on this as
clearly and politely as possible:

>> >From schwallr at selway.umt.edu Tue Aug 10 21:16:47 1999
>>Date: Tue, 27 Jul 1999 15:32:40 -0600
>>From: "John F. Schwaller" <schwallr at selway.umt.edu>
>>Subject: Human sacrifice
>>
>>Dear members,
>>
>>The current thread on sacrifice has now moved to a point relatively far
>>beyond the parameters of the list.  If you wish to continue the discussion,
>>which does have merit and which I have found interesting, please do it
>>off-line
..
>>J. F. Schwaller, List Owner

Let us return to cordial and productive exchange on the Nahuatl language.

Your humble tetlayecoltiani.

Ricardo J. Salvador         E-mail: mailto:salvador at iastate.edu
1126 Agronomy Hall        Voice: 515.294.9595
Iowa State University    Fax: 515.294.8146
Ames IA 50011-1010          WWW: http://www.public.iastate.edu/~rjsalvad