Subject: Re: No Subject
From: Tim O'Connor (oconnort@nyu.edu)
Date: Tue Dec 11 2001 - 23:25:34 GMT
On Tue, Dec 11, 2001 at 10:14:57PM -0500, SkiFrog717@aol.com wrote:
Welcome to the list!
> hey all, I just subscribed to bananafish and i'm not sure this is even the
> right way to post stuff or send stuff, but i want to talk or send emails back
> and forth or wahtever about nine stories. anyone interested please write
> back! pretty mouth and green my eyes is what im thinking abotu today but i
> also want to talk about bananafish, uncle wiggily, eskimos, down at the
> dinghy.. sooo, write back please! thanks, Jess
Well, as you will see, we love to talk (or chatter, depending on one's
point of view), but one suggestion I have that will help get you off
to a good start is to send along a nicely focused message that is, as
Holden might say, "specific as hell" about one story, and about your
thoughts and questions and ideas about it.
That way, rather than opening up an impossibly broad topic that
likely won't grab a lot of attention, you'll narrow things down to a
single story (or maybe two stories, if there's a link you want to talk
about or point out), and this will help stir up the pot and get people
talking on the subject that interests you.
That, anyhow, is one way to get the give-and-take started. You can
see some of how it works by visiting the archives, at:
http://www.roughdraft.org/JDS/
And if you do the math on it, well, you can cause quite a lot of talk
to take place if you carefully space out queries about specific stories.
You know, begin by talking about what intrigues you about "Bananafish"
(for example), toss out a question or two, or ideas you've considered
about that story, and before you know it, you'll probably get *at least*
the hard core of participants to join in.
If you phrase it intriguingly enough, you might even lure out some of
the lurkers on the list who read but only rarely post. There are about
150 people who subscribe right now, and if you grab the attention of
only a handful of people here, the number of answers can be reasonably
healthy, and when things work well, you get plenty of messages going
back and forth, with ideas flying about, and things can get interesting.
That's when it's good.
On the other hand, sometimes you'll send something that for one reason
or another doesn't attract any responses. It happens. I hope you'll
learn not to take it personally.
That's more or less how it works around here. It's reasonably informal
and can be (we hope) a friendly and open marketplace of ideas. As long
as you make your messages readable and cleanly written, people will
focus on the content of what you say, and you ought to get perspectives
from people all around the world. We have subscribers from every
continent, I believe, except Antarctica. And we're working on that one
-- we're trying to convince John to leave his haven in warm, sunny
Florida and take his keyboard and golf clubs south. I know in my heart
that John just LOVES the cold weather. <grin> If John won't go
there, maybe I'll give it some consideration....
So: welcome to the list, and now may you stir things up constructively!
--tim o'connor
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