Re: Side issues

[Faith Weber <weber -at- EASI -dot- ENET -dot- DEC -dot- COM>]

It may be true that some would have been happier had responses gone
to the original inquirer rather than the list. Personally, I found
the information interesting and useful and I'm glad I saw it, but
I probably wouldn't have asked for a summary, either.

It's nice that some of you folks out there can focus entirely on
writing, editing, etc. However, that's hardly the case for everyone
on the list. I think about 75% of the usefulness of this list would
be lost for me if I was unable to ask others for advice about the
tools -- *any* kind of tools -- used to do my job. In many cases,
tech comms use hardware and software differently than people in other
professions, and I feel a lot more confident that I'll find out the
relevant pluses and minuses of a tool from another tech comm than from
someone using the tool for a different job.

If people on the list were discussing "Jurassic Park" or something,
I could understand the repeated attempts to restrict the topics of
this listserv. I think most of the topics discussed here are quite
relevant to technical communication, and the current flow of
messages is manageable enough for everyone to make their own decisions
about what's relevant or irrelevant to their work.

Faith Weber
weber -at- easi -dot- enet -dot- dec -dot- com