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Subject: Re: Public Comments
From: pbwelch
Date: February 21, 1998
Steve,
I appreciate your taking the time and making the effort to post these
messages. I hope you will continue to do so. How about starting your own
mailing list?? I would love that!
Pat
Steven Coker wrote:
>
> To: Sarah Browder and the other subscribers
> cc: Adrian Hopkins, List Owner
>
> This one time public statement is offered for consideration by the list owner
> and all subscribers. It would be best if responses were not sent to the list
> service. They should be sent to me or to the list owner.
>
> I'm sorry if any of you don't like the information I posted. Most of it
> contains genealogical resources on numerous surnames in South Carolina during
> the 1670-1900 period. Including membership roles, poll lists, patient lists,
> property owner lists, etc. With a couple of exceptions I generally only posted
> items that contained genealogical gems mentioning more than a few surnames.
> Here are my some of my thoughts on the matter which I offer for consideration by
> you and others concerned with the issue of the 30 or so messages I posted last
> night.
>
> 1. All of the 30 or so messages were small, most 4k or less.
>
> 2. Almost all were on topic with interesting information useful for genealogy
> researchers. The two that may have stretched the boundaries were about the
> Attack on Sullivan's Island. Those two were posted in response to inquiries and
> comments from several people asking specifically about the Island's history. I
> decided to post that information because the 190 year old book from which it was
> taken is not readily available to most people.
>
> 3. I've gotten many comments from other readers thanking me for the posts.
> Nobody has ever complained directly to me about any of them. Quite the
> contrary, so far I've only gotten positive responses. Several have asked me to
> look for specific information on their surnames, which I have often done as
> asked. One person did childishly forward several of the messages back to me
> without comment or explanation of any kind.
>
> 4. I tried to be selective about what I posted. I tried not to post items that
> didn't have information of interest to a wide audience. That audience being
> persons seeking genealogy information and resources for South Carolina.
>
> 5. I did the work late at night when the net servers should not be working
> hard. So the routing would have no effect on the system. Of course 30 or so
> small messages over an 8 hour period wouldn't have had any effect on the net
> servers anyway.
>
> 6. I don't consider it "hogging" because I wasn't posting information for
> myself. I was posting information to help others, not myself. I've already
> received messages from others saying the information has helped them. Several
> such responses arrived while I was doing the work last night. Such positive
> responses stimulated me to continue past when I would have otherwise ceased the
> work.
>
> 7. I could have "spread out" the messages and not sent so many in one night.
> But, I actually thought that concentrating them would be better for the digest
> editions. Figured putting all those short messages in a few digests seemed like
> a way to make them easier to use and save for future review.
>
> 8. I was born and raised in Columbia, South Carolina, and have lived in
> Charleston for many years. My various family lines are spread throughout the
> State and most have been here for 200-300+ years. I graduated from the
> University of South Carolina and spent many hours in Caroliniana Library. I've
> done research in the State Archives, the Huguenot Society archives, and I'm a
> past member of the SC Historical Society, and the Sumter and Columbia chapters
> of the S.C. Genealogical Society. I offer this information by way of explaining
> that I feel that I have an above average understanding of the State, its
> history, and the genealogy of some of the families found here. Thus, I feel I
> have some ability to discriminate which types and sources of information might
> be useful to a wider audience. However, I do not purport to be an expert, a
> historian, or a professional genealogist. I am just an interested amateur who
> likes to help share information.
>
> The only negative I thought might be perceived would be that its a lot of
> messages from one person. But, I decided since they were on topic general
> interest subjects that I would be forgiven for that little sin.
>
> Since I sent all of them before most folks got up this morning, the messages
> should all be delivered at once when each subscriber logs in for the day, not
> dribbled in. If anyone is having these messages being delivered or announced
> one message at the time, there must be something wrong about how their email
> program is configured. When they first installed email programs on the 140+
> computers in our offices, the default setup was for every incoming message to
> spawn a popup message and an audio alarm. Well, it wasn't uncommon for people
> in the office to receive dozens of messages every day. People were cussing and
> getting very upset because they were regularly being interrupted while they were
> trying to work by the alarms and popup messages. We simply showed them how to
> turn off those alarms and set their email program to just blink the icon, or do
> nothing, when new mail arrived. That solved the problem and ended the
> annoyance. They get even more email now than they did when it was setup years
> ago. But, now it simply sits politely in their inbox until they get time to
> check the mail. It doesn't interrupt or annoy them.
>
> I hope that any problems or concerns subscribers might be having with receiving
> 30 or more messages per day aren't caused by such simple things as an email
> alarm sounding. Such simple annoyances can be turned off if the subscriber
> chooses to do so. Isn't the information more important than having a little
> bell dinging when a message arrives?
>
> When someone gets around to checking their mail, if they find a lot of stuff
> that doesn't interest them, then its easy to delete it. Takes about 1-2 seconds
> per message to delete them individually. Or, group deletions can be done even
> faster. The only way it could take a lot of time to delete 30 or so messages
> would be if the user stopped to read each one first. It seems incongruous that
> they would take the time to read each of them if they are of the mind that they
> don't want to see these types of messages.
>
> In conclusion, if either the list owner or a significant number of the
> participant's find my postings undesirable, then I will of course cease
> contributing to the list service. However, as I said earlier, I have to date
> received many complimentary thanks for the postings and, until now, almost no
> complaints. Perhaps following this public statement of my thoughts on the
> matter I will find there are many others who agree with you. I'll be interested
> to find out one way or the other. But, let us all try to keep any discussion of
> the subject limited, civil, and let us not clog up the list service with this
> discussion.
>
> Sincerely,
>
> Steven J. Coker
>
> [email protected] wrote:
> >
> > Enough is enough. If you can't stop Coker from so many messages, then take me
> > off the list. I had over 35-40 this morn. I do not have time to read SC
> > history. I am interested in genealogy. But that still takes time just to
> > delete that many messages. Let me know if you intend to stop him or I and
> > others will have to get off the list. Thanks
> > Sarah Browder
> >
>
> --
>
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