It seems to me that optics, press n peel, 120 ohm cat5, etc actually
should eb under the EE heading.

When is the last time you saw any interesting technical discussion in OT
that wouldn't fit under EE?  As you look through all the posts marked
OT, is there anything really very interesting to you?

When the split occured for the various tags, I was against it.  I'm
still against it, and much like you would rather have a single list with
pic and ee posts.  But since we can't get rid of those who want to chat
(and many of the most useful PIC people want to chat, so we shouldn't
try), then we may as well provide an outlet for their finger energy
which others can shut off.

Nearly /all/ of the messages on the recent tragedy have occurred in
either OT or without any tag.  It appears to me that one could turn off
the OT tag completely and not miss out on EE or PIC subjects.

Since it's not my list I have no control over how it's run, nor can I
control those who will chat.  While the list admins could vigorously
oppose those who don't stay on topic (EE, PIC, AVR), I feel it was good
for them to allow tame discussion (withou personal attacks) in the
'appropiate' channel.  Many people only subscribe to this list and this
is the only online community they can think of.  They are familiar with
the people, and trust us enough to share their feelings.  It is
important for communities, online of offline, to recognize that a
certian amount of discussion on such topics  really should take place
for a number of reasons.  It also give us a chance to get to know each
other in more terms than just 'Well, Adam's hobby is pic, and he's done
some home automation stuff...  I think...'  Which is important.  If it
is not important to some of us, then the ability to filter at the list
level has been given to us.

Like you I prefer to let the firehose full open, but recently I've split
the posts into their different folders and it has really crystallized
things for me,  everything in PIC aside form 3 or 4 posts in the last
week has not only been interestig, but on topic.

Lastly, this is barely the beginning of the school year.  Every summer
the list dies down a little, becomes a little more off topic, but it
always pics up at the end of summer (ok, summer for the /northern/
hemisphere) and you should find that OT will again take less than 1/5 of
the list bandwidth.

There is a point where the moderators should stop the discussion that's
currently going on,  but it may die out itself as those who are making
personal and flamable remarks are being removed, and those kind of
people are really the only ones that keep any off topic discussion going
on longer than a week.

I really appreciate your contribution to the piclist, Bob.  I would hate
to see you leave the list over this.  Hopefully you can be patient and
bear it - it will be business as usual very shortly.

-Adam

Bob Blick wrote:

>Right on, brother!
>
>The [OT]: tag is totally abused. Things should only be posted to the list
>that are interesting in a technical sense, regardless of the tag.
>
>The use of tags just gives all the Chatty Cathies a green light to blab
>endlessly, while persons such as myself scan the list int the hope there
>will be something interesting posted someday soon.
>
>Any criticism of the list is treated defensively or with outright hostility
>by management or by the chatty ones.
>
>This is the first post I've made to the list in months. I still scan the
>list, and I reply to questions, but have only been replying by private
>email because of the large amount of spam each post generates(as the list
>is now harvested by usenet) and because of the afore-mentioned hostility.
>
>I have zero interest in non-technical issues. The piclist was good when
>there were no subject line tags, because good people would complain when
>someone posted off-topic stuff, and it would drop off. Now the [OT]: tag
>protects that crap. Unfortunately if someone wants to ask a question about
>something like optics, they have to use the [OT]: tag. Too bad it doesn't
>even register above the other noise, and many of the smart ones filter out
>all [OT]: posts so they don't even see it.
>
>Posting that optics question with a [PIC]: subject line will get it
>noticed, but probably only by management or one of the henchmen.
>
>Am I making my opinion clear enough for management to understand? The
>piclist is for technical people. There are philosophy lists for that other
>stuff.
>
>Get rid of non-technical posts and the number of posts will be slashed to a
>manageable number. Then there will be no need for subject line tags.
>Problem solved. Piclist improved.
>
>I'm now waiting for a slow-top to suggest the need for still more tags,
>perhaps one to allow for posts relating to optics :-)
>
>Please send all defensive or hostile replies to /dev/null or whatever the
>Windows NT equivalent is :-)
>
>Cheerful regards,
>
>Bob Blick
>
>--
>http://www.piclist.com hint: The list server can filter out subtopics
>(like ads or off topics) for you. See http://www.piclist.com/#topics
>
>
>
>
>

--
http://www.piclist.com hint: The list server can filter out subtopics
(like ads or off topics) for you. See http://www.piclist.com/#topics