To: VOCALIST <vocalist>
From: Barbara Miller
Subject: Re: Danielle's query to: What's been in the drinking water?
Send reply to: VOCALIST <vocalist>

Ernie Valenzuela, perhaps coming into this thread a little late, reinforces
Danielle's question:

>Why indeed would one decide to delete an email to this list
>simply based on "a certain [people's] person's name"?
>It seems to me that a prejudicial bias is brought upon an
>individual & that certain someone, their post & future posts are
>not to be considered as a viable contribution fit to be read.
>That is essentially inconsiderate & violates that fundamental element
>indicated in the Vocalist "Netiquette" rules: respect.
>

I think the first person who said they were doing this felt that the people
whose posts they were deleting were not showing sufficient respect when
responding to others, i.e. disagreeing in a way that was disagreeably rude.
In other words, it is not simply someone's name that is causing people to
delete their posts; it is a history associated with that name. We all have
to select which bits of the information deluge to give our attention to;
some folks have decided not to give their attention to messages that are
likely to generate more heat than light for them. (Others use the subject
field as a tool for deciding whether or not a message will be of value to
them, and Vocalist etiquette supplies guidelines for us to help them decide
intelligently.)

Other members of the list have pointed out that perhaps certain qualities
such as irony, rhetorical energy and simply the mood someone happens to be
in are being lost as the bits speed around the world and show up as
expressionless text in people's e-mail. This loss can cause offense or
annoyance where none was intended. Speaking from my limited experience
(just the past week or so since I joined), I think this group is pretty
civil by internet standards. Perhaps the fact that I read it in Digest
form gives it what I think is an unusually high ratio of good information
to volume of messages.

Barb Miller