Cob: Coblist Kahuna says kill the off topic postings

[Shannon C. Dealy]

This is the COB LIST it is about the design and construction of things
which incorporate COB.  It is NOT for the discussion of heating/cooling
systems other than how to size and install them in your cob building, or
how to make them out of cob.  It is NOT for debating what are sustainable
or unsustainable building practices except with regard to how sustainable
or unsustainable cob is.  And most importantly it is not the place for
long winded arguments that have very little to do with cob.  If you don't
like something that someone says to you or about you on the list, and it
doesn't involve cob, be the bigger person, park your ego, show
consideration for the other members of the list and email the person 
PRIVATELY.

APPROPRIATE coblist topics include:

    How to make COB and variations on methods
    New applications/ideas for using COB
    Insulation systems for COB buildings
    Designing/planning your COB building including solar design
    Design and construction of COB stoves (regardless of what they burn)
    COB sculpture, benches, shelves, etc.

For those of you who have forgotten, or decided not to read it, I have
included a copy of my list posting policies below, please refresh your
memory.


Shannon C. Dealy      |                    DeaTech Research Inc.
dealy at deatech.com     |               - Custom Software Development -
                      |         Embedded Systems, Real-time, Device Drivers
Phone: (800) 467-5820 |      Networking, Scientific & Engineering Applications
   or: (541) 451-5177 |                       www.deatech.com    


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POSTING POLICIES:
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The following list posting policy was extracted from an email I sent to
the list in order to clarify what constitutes appropriate behavior.

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Basic list posting policy:

Do whatever you like until it irritates me, then I will tell you to do 
something else.  If you ignore me after being warned then I kick you off
the list.  Sorry if some of you want a more cut and dried answer, but
this is how I manage the list.  To date, I have not even had to issue a
warning (though I have made a few behind the scenes suggestions) and I
would prefer to keep it that way. If you wish to avoid irritating me, all
that is really necessary is to show consideration for others on the list
by considering ALL the consequences of your actions.  In order to aid
those of you who are newbies or who for whatever reason haven't picked up
on the basics of being a polite member of a mailing list, I will try to
spell out in gory detail what I mean by this and why.

How to be considerate when posting to a list:

1 - When responding to a posting by someone else, remove from your reply,
    all portions of their posting that you are not responding to, and
    make note of where the deletions occured using "[snip]" or a similar
    notation (see the top of this message for an example).  It may be
    necessary to have multiple "[snip]" marks if you are responding to
    several different points and interleaving your responses with their
    messages.  This is particularly important for people who subscribe
    to the digest version.

    WHY: Any portion of the message you are not responding to but still
    include in your reply is:

       a) Wasting space in the archives
       b) Costing money for list members in areas which still charge
          by the byte transfered or by the minute of connect time.
          Remember this is an international list, and internet access
          in many countries is much more expensive than it is in the
          U.S.A.
       c) Wasting the time of list members who end up reading this
          useless portion of your posting in order to get the context
          for reading your reply.

2 - Keep your postings on topic.  This does not mean you can't discuss
    anything other than the specific topic, but it does mean there should
    be a DIRECT connection with the list topic.  In other words, for
    the coblist it is appropriate to discuss any aspect of house building
    as it pertains to cob, as well as any other possible uses of cob.
    Examples of appropriate cob discussion would be:  Cob ovens, cob
    furniture, cob sculpture, how to make cob, plasters, foundations,
    floor systems, roofs, attaching cob to other materials such as
    strawbale, related earth building techniques such as rammed earth,
    design of buildings using a mix of techniques including cob, etc.
    Inappropriate postings would include how to feed the world, what is
    wrong with our government (except of course where it pertains to
    buildings, permits and approvals), and any other topic which does
    not pertain to creating buildings using earth and straw.

    WHY:  This is not what most members of the list signed up for, and
    while I certainly understand how easy it is to get off topic, the
    appropriate way to deal with the discussion is to take it off the
    list by privately sending email directly to those persons who have
    been involved in the off topic discussion.  One of the biggest
    problems with trying to get the discussion off of the list is that
    everyone wants to be the one to have the last word to the list and
    prove that they were right, rather than take it off the list and
    have those who don't participate in the follow up think they were
    wrong.  I understand this, it is only human nature and I suffer
    from this inclination like everyone else, but it is necessary
    to ignore your inclinations and do what is best for the list.
    In other words show consideration for others first and your ego
    second.

    If you want to make sure anyone who is interested in the discussion
    gets a chance to participate when you move it off list, send one
    final message on the subject to the list which contains no discussion
    of the topic (no fair trying to get the last word :-), but notifies
    everyone you are taking it off the list and that they should email
    you privately if they wish to discuss it further.

    It is particularly important to keep the discussion on topic for the
    following reasons:
       a) All of the reasons given for item one above
       b) If the list contains to many unrelated postings, then people
          who don't have time to read all of them will unsubscribe and
          they are often the most valuable contributors.  Putting a
          note in the subject line or top of the message that it is off
          topic doesn't help since it still takes time to determine that
          the message is not of interest and discard it.  You may think
          that this shouldn't be a problem because there aren't that many
          off topic messages on this list, but everyone on this list gets
          mail from other sources, including in many cases, several other
          lists, and the cumulative effect of all the unwanted postings
          mixed in with the desireable ones can consume a great deal of
          time.  One of the reasons I don't participate more in this
          list is lack of time, caused in part by the amount of email
          I have to deal with (sometimes as much as 1000 messages a
          week, thankfully it's usually closer to 100 messages per week).
          The strawbale list lost some of it's best contributors for
          this very reason, and if any of you have looked at the internet
          newsgroups lately, you will find that most of them have been
          abandoned to the advertisers because it takes to much time for
          people to find the useful postings in the mass of junk.
       c) Many of us (possibly most of us) have heard the whole debate
          on the current off topic subject before, regardless of what 
          the topic is.  The same off topic subjects come up over and
          over again within the same list, as well as on other lists.

3 - Don't include unnecessary or unuseable information in your postings.
    Examples of this would be:

    Don't include copies of pages from web sites, just provide the URL
    for the web page so those who are interested can go and get it.  It
    is however appropriate to collect information from a variety of web
    pages and condense it in order to provide a list of useful information.

    Messages to the list should be sent in plain text format, NOT HTML
    which some of you have on occasion sent though you may not realize
    you are doing it.  If you are using a web browser to read and send
    email, check your configuration to make sure it sends using plain
    text (sorry, I can't give you specific instructions).

    Refrain from attaching documents in other formats, convert it to 
    plain text first rather than making everyone else do the work for
    you.

    Don't attach pictures to your postings, put them on your personal
    web page and give people the URL in your posting.

    WHY:
       a) All of the reasons for item one above
       b) Not everyone uses a web browser to read their email, so if
          your mail contains HTML formating information, it makes it
          very hard to read.
       c) Not everyone has the facilities to convert documents you
          attach, so they cannot read your attached document.
       d) Many internet service providers have limits on the size of
          message that their customers can receive, as well as the
          amount of space allowed for storage of their unread messages.
          If you start attaching large objects like pictures, it may
          not even be possible for some members of the list to receive
          your message because of message size limitations.

Remember, whenever you post to this list you are sending your message to
people all over the world (currently about 160 people), each of them with
different interests, concerns, and technological capabilities in the form
of internet services, computers, and software.  Before sending a message
to the list, you should consider whether or not your posting is relevant
to the interest each of them has expressed by their signing up for this
list, and whether each member will be able to read or view all of the
information you send.

I am not trying to discourage anyone from posting to the list or even
telling you what to do with the current off topic discussion, but keep in
mind now that you have been made aware of some of the problems and issues 
with posting messages to an email list, anytime you fail to follow the
above guidelines, you are failing to show consideration for the other
members of the group.

Shannon Dealy
dealy at deatech.com
12/15/97