Re: Transformational and taxic approaches to character coding [was Re: Philosophies for Character Ordering]

["Jonathan R. Wagner" <jonathan.r.wagner@mail.utexas.edu>]

Dora wrote:
> I kind of think the answer is to get individual posts.

I wouldn't want to unfairly characterize anyone, but it seems to me that
many of the people who get the dinosaur list as individual posts have a lot
more free time on their hands than I do. :)


> I always subscribe to individual posts - that way I get any relevant posts
> immediately.

I check my e-mail about once a day, because much of the rest of the day I am
working (with varying degrees of effectiveness)... that's about 60 messages
all at once, from which I have to manually dissect the 45 spams and formerly
virus-bearing e-mails to find the fifteen that are of interest (many of my
fellow graduate students use surprisingly spam-like subject lines). Those
fifteen messages are usually pretty important (to me), and it is hard enough
making sure I don't accidentally delete one of them. I would much rather not
add the 10-50 messages from the Llist to that mess.

I cruise the archeives when I can, and I try to stay on top of what is
happenning on the list, but I have several times found that I am a party to
a conversation I never knew existed, because someone responded to my post
without cc-ing me.

UPSHOT: If you folks who get the individual messages have the time to sort
through them, is it so much of a bother to get two copies of the ones on
threads in which you are involved? Would you rather be rude?


> I don't read all the many e-mails I get that don't interest
> me!

    Really? Then how do you tell if they interest you? ;)


>    First thing I always do is delete stuff I don't want to read.   I've
> never been able to understand people complaining about too much e-mail.

Again, it may be a difference of circumstances. My advisor claims to get 200
messages a day. He also claims that up to 50 of them may actually be
legitimate scientific or academic correspondence requiring a response. These
he must check individually, prioritize, and then respond to those that are
really urgent. Anyone who has tried to contact him can tell you that this
may not always happen quite that efficiently, but I don't think it is for
lack of trying. From what I have heard of other professors, this situation
is not unusual; these are folks who spend ten to twelve hours a day teaching
and doing research... the time it takes to simply sort their e-mail is a
burden.

As an aside, I don't know how Tom Holtz does it... While various individuals
have, at various times, offerred interpretations as to why professional
paleontologists tend to leave the DinoList, I think the answer is simple: it
takes a lot of time. Some of them, especially Holtz, have contributed
enormously to the educational content of the list through their
participation. However, you have to ask what price they pay for their time.
I'm not sure a tenure committee will accept participation on a list-serv as
"community service" (they should!), and the rewards that such service offers
are very long-term and very intangible. I suspect that most of what Holtz,
Brochu, Naish, Bonnan, and so many others will end up with is a lot of
grattitude, and the knowledge that they have contributed to the education of
a lot of people. And, I hate to say it, but grattitude doesn't pay bills,
feed babies, get promotions, etc.

So, considering how little I have ever contributed to the List, one wonders
why *I* am bringing this up at all! :)


Anyway, this has gotten way off dinosaurs, and I suspect Mickey and Mary
will ask us to reign it in. I guess I've said more than my piece on this
subject.

Wagner