SEELANGS Administrivia - The Shishkin thread and Excessive Quoting - Please Read

[Alex Rudd]

Dear SEELANGS Members,

With any luck, this message from me will accomplish two things:

1) It will address the appropriateness of the Mikhail Shishkin/fascist
government thread; and
2) It will inform (or remind) you of important list guidelines and
currently-existing solutions for a couple of the routine issues that
crop up on SEELANGS.

1. - The "Mikhail Shishkin/fascist government" thread.

Why am I choosing to address this thread in one of my rare
administrative posts?  Frankly, it's because I think it merits a
reminder about one of our list guidelines, and also because multiple
people have chosen to unsubscribe from the list since that thread got
rolling yesterday, and a couple of them cited that thread to me as
contributing to their desire to leave.  Bear with me here.

As most of you know, SEELANGS is, for the most part, an unmoderated
list.  That simply means that nearly all of the messages submitted for
distribution are posted to the list without first having been reviewed
and approved by someone acting as a moderator.  SEELANGS is not,
however, a virtual Wild West where anything goes.  There are rules
(which I've always chosen to style as "guidelines" rather than
"rules," because frankly, we're all adults here, we're capable of
adhering to guidelines if we so choose, and as list owner, I just
don't have the time to spend enforcing rules).

The guidelines have been in place for years and years and years.  They
can be found in the Welcome message sent to new subscribers.  On
numerous occasions over the years I've posted here to explain how to
go about having LISTSERV e-mail you a copy of the current version of
the Welcome message.  I suspect that most of you didn't bother to read
the Welcome message when you subscribed, and you haven't read it since
then, either.  I've been exhorting people here to use the basic
netiquette embodied in the guidelines for years, sometimes on the
list, but usually off-list directly to a member disregarding them.
I've also grown accustomed to being ignored here.  But I'm not
powerless; I can, and often do, intervene when necessary, and I have
all sorts of list owner tools in my toolbox.

Here are two excerpts from the SEELANGS Welcome message:

---------- Begin ----------

SEELANGS exists to facilitate discussion of topics of interest to
teachers and students of Russian and other Slavic and East European
languages and literatures.  Use the list in furtherance of that
general goal.  But please, do not treat SEELANGS or its members with
disrespect.  Profanity is not welcome, nor is language which demeans
or belittles other people or groups of people.  It is further expected
that list members will conduct themselves in a mature and polite
manner towards fellow list members.  "Flames" will not be tolerated.
The list owner reserves the right to take any action he feels
appropriate to ensure the smooth operation of the list.

<SNIP>

There are many people subscribed to SEELANGS.  Most are instructors or
students of one type or another, and all of them presumably have some
interest in Slavic Languages and Literatures.  List members' specific
areas of interest vary, as does the knowledge they bring to our
discussions.  Please remember that every other list member is
deserving of your respect, and conduct yourself accordingly when
posting.

Specifically, remember that "Slavic Languages and Literatures" is what
brings people to this list, yet not every post will contain a question
or comment fitting neatly under that heading.  If you are concerned
that someone has posted something falling, in your opinion, too far
from the central purpose of the list, do not write to the entire list
to express your displeasure.  Instead, first understand that there
must be some amount of wiggle room on a list like SEELANGS, as there
will be small differences in what subscribers expect to see here.  If
you are new to the list, please observe for awhile to see the uses to
which most members put it.

If you must voice your opposition to the fact that a given subject has
been raised on the list, please write directly to the list owners, as
they will be in a position to take action, or explain why taking
action is not warranted.  The list owners can be reached by writing
to:

SEELANGS-Request at LISTSERV.UA.EDU

For purposes of clarification, please note that the discussion of
discrete political matters is not welcome on SEELANGS.  However, as
political and other concerns have influenced Slavic Languages and
Literatures, if posting on such a theme, use common sense and
recognize when your contribution has ceased to be about aiding
linguistic comprehension, and has begun to be purely political.  There
are many other discussion lists and similar on-line discussion forums
that exist solely for the discussion of politics, and you should not
confuse SEELANGS with them.

---------- End ----------

Bela Shayevich started the Mikhail Shishkin thread.  In fairness to
her, though, all she really did at the outset was post a message of
just a few lines designed to convey a link to an article in The
Guardian that she, presumably, thought would interest some of you (and
clearly it did).  However, if no one had responded to that post on the
list, it probably would have been left at that, and no one would have
had a problem with it.  Instead, there were some comments, and the
discussion arguably devolved into something somewhat out of the
ordinary for this list, which also happened to include the quoting of
an excessive amount of original text.

To be clear, I'm not using this opportunity to condemn the Mikhail
Shishkin thread.  From some people's perspectives, parts of it might
be seen as entirely appropriate subject matter for the SEELANGS list.
My goal is simply to interject our longstanding guideline into the
mix, so that when you participate in this (or any) discussion on the
list, you might keep it in mind, whether or not you choose to act
differently as a result.  If your contemplated contribution really
focuses only on politics, then perhaps you ought to take it elsewhere
or off-list.

2. Some Other Important Reminders

Despite receiving all our guidelines in the SEELANGS Welcome message
when they joined the list, many people continue to ignore the
prohibition on including excessive amounts of quoted text in replies
they post to the list.  The fact that this continues to be a problem
is reflective of a societal shift to what has been referred to as
top-posting.  You're reading an e-mail message.  You click "Reply."
By default, your e-mail client quotes the entire original message, and
puts the cursor above the quoted message.  You don't think twice about
it and just compose your reply, including everything below when you
finally click on "Send."  In some contexts, such as in the business
world, top-posting
might actually be the preferred default format.  Here, it's not.  It
would be much better if everyone would quote selectively as the
guideline requires.  Here's the actual text from the Welcome message:

---------- Begin ----------

***** QUOTING TEXT FROM ORIGINAL MESSAGES *****

Because all posts to SEELANGS are archived, and because disk space is
a finite resource, list members are asked to pay close attention when
they reply to messages on the list and quote text.  Including portions
of original messages is fine, as long as it's done to provide context
for the reader and is done selectively.  However, quoting entire
original
messages within the body of replies, when the original messages are
more than just a few lines, is prohibited.  Not only does it fill up
our disk space with extraneous text, but
those list members receiving SEELANGS in DIGEST format are forced to
read through the same messages three and four times.

---------- End ----------

This is yet another official request from me that everyone please do
what they can to comply with that guideline.  For those of you who
don't, I might end up having to contact you off-list about it, so
please don't be surprised if that happens.

But, some people are lazy, and the vast majority of subscribers won't
even have read this far in my post, so... for those of you who've
stuck with me, here's something concrete you can do:

To those of you who receive SEELANGS mail in DIGEST format (and there
are 446 of you), please consider switching to the INDEX format, which
is so much better.  Set to INDEX, you will continue to get only one
(or perhaps two) e-mails per day from SEELANGS.  However, rather than
get the full text of all the messages posted to the list that day all
bundled together, you'll get only a listing (index) of the messages
posted to the list that day.  The list includes the message number,
the sender, and the subject line for each post.  Looking at the
listing, you can then decide which messages you want to read.  To read
a message, you just click on the message number and the post opens in
a Web browser window.  Once you're viewing the message in your Web
browser, you can use controls on the page to navigate to the next or
previous messagein the thread, etc.  You can even post a reply
directly from that browser window.

If you'd like to try it, send the command:

SET SEELANGS INDEX MIME HTML

in the body of e-mail to:   LISTSERV at LISTSERV.UA.EDU

If you choose to use the INDEX option, you must also register a
LISTSERV password, which LISTSERV uses to authenticate you as a
subscriber authorized to access that message.  To register your
LISTSERV password, you will need to use your Subscription Address (the
e-mail address from which you are currently subscribed to SEELANGS)
and a password of your own choosing.  You can register a LISTSERV password here:

http://listserv.ua.edu/cgi-bin/wa?GETPW1

The first time you click to read one of the posts in an INDEX message
you will be prompted for your subscription address and LISTSERV
password.  However, once you enter that information and click the
Login button, your information is saved in a cookie on your hard drive
and you will not be bothered with that intermediate step again (unless
you change subscription addresses or delete your cookies).

The INDEX option will work with smartphones, by the way, but I can
understand if you don't want to read list mail in your phone's Web
browser.  So, another thing you can do is consider using a Gmail
address for your SEELANGS subscription and changing your Subscription
Options from DIGEST to MAIL (i.e., SET SEELANGS MAIL or SET SEELANGS
NODIGEST (does the same thing)).  Gmail is great because it groups
threads together by subject line, and also because it hides all that
quoted text from view.  Even if it's there, you see only an ellipsis,
which you can click can expand if you really want to see the quoted
text.  Gmail accounts are free.  Gmail is built into the Android
operating system and Gmail clients exist for iPhone and Windows
Mobile.  You can even configure your Gmail account to make it appear
that e-mail you send from it is coming from your work or school
account.

If you should find yourself in need of a copy of the current version
of the SEELANGS Welcome message, compose a new e-mail message to:

LISTSERV at LISTSERV.UA.EDU

Put anything (or nothing) in the Subject: line (it gets ignored), and
in the main body of the text put only the following single line:

GET SEELANGS WELCOME

and send the message.  LISTSERV will e-mail you the copy.

Finally, I'd like to take this opportunity to thank all of you for
your presence and contributions, on-list and off, both of which
continue to make SEELANGS a worthwhile endeavor and valuable resource.
 Clearly, it has not outlived its usefulness.  This month marks 20
years since I took over administration of SEELANGS.  Just as an
interesting aside, 20 years ago there were about 300 subscribers.  In
early 2000 there were about 950 subscribers.  In March 2012, there
were 2,700 subscribers.  Now, a year later, there are nearly 2,900
subscribers.

Any questions, please write me directly off-list.

Thanks.

- Alex, list owner of SEELANGS
--
Alex Rudd
List owner e-mail: seelangs-request at listserv.ua.edu
Personal e-mail: Alex.Rudd at gmail.com
http://seelangs.home.comcast.net/
Any opinion expressed above is not necessarily shared by my employers.

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