Re: [NTLK] Fighting Complacency within the Newton Community

Well, Matt, you inspired me to post about this too (albeit a bit delayed
because I receive the digest format of NewtonTalk).

First I agree with you on your main point. A lot of posts in these sort of
mailing lists are uninteresting to me. I tend to skim through my digests
pretty fast each morning. But occasionally I will find something worthwhile
to read, and sometimes I will feel compelled to contribute to the
discussion. In the end, I feel the good outweighs the bad/mediocre because,
well, I still maintain my subscription to this Newton list! I don't know if
forcing people to post would do any good, but I believe you were more
interested in inspiring people to do more on this list, rather than
demanding they do something (I read between the lines).

One PHD wrote in reply to you that he simply doesn't have time to
contribute. This is a common excuse given by those who don't even have a
high school diploma! :-) Fact is, nobody has time to do anything, ever.
You MAKE time to do something. You make time to go to work. You make time
to spend with your children. You make time to date, to go to church, to
rest and to play, to study and to exercise. Where there's a will, there's a
way. The lack of a will results in "complacency" which is the subject of
this thread. Thank you, Mike, for shaking us up a bit on that point.

Now if you'll please forgive me, I wish to take issue with with you on two
points: (a) your AOL SPAM and (b) your profanity laced with a sugar coating.

I hate SPAM, and I think your initial AOL posts will only work to led some
people to believe you either willingly put them on the list or you
accidentally allowed them due to incompetence. Either way, such actions
tend to cast a dark shadow over anything written by the source of such SPAM.

Next, profanity (even covered with ASCII symbols) only shows how little one
knows. Despite popular thought in the states, profanity does not emphasize
your point; it only emphasizes stupidity.

Sorry to offend some of your folks by saying this, but I hate senseless
words, and profanity is all about senselessness. Here in Japan, there are
relative few profane words compared to English, and I must say that my 12
years spent here have been a real blessing as a result. I travel back to
the US and get smacked with a tsunami of profanity by people who appear to
me to be highly uneducated (although many have PHDs and MBAs). Profanity
eats away at the brain, whereas normal profanity-free conversation
stimulates it. Please consider a more tactful way to stimulate folks on
this list. I think you have a lot to contribute, Matt, and I would love to
keep hearing it so long as it stimulates the brain in a good way.
Otherwise, it goes directly into File-13.

Best,

James Wages

-- 
This is the NewtonTalk list - http://www.newtontalk.net/ for all inquiries
Official Newton FAQ: http://www.chuma.org/newton/faq/
WikiWikiNewt for all kinds of articles: http://tools.unna.org/wikiwikinewt/