[ADMINISTRATIVE] What's your opinion on digests?
oconnort@nyu.edu
Thu, 10 Jul 1997 10:14:41 -0400 (EDT)
One of the nice things about being out of town is that one comes back
with a slightly new perspective. As I took the list's pulse this
morning (my first real day back at work), I noticed one trend, and
wonder what the subscribers think about what follows.
For those of you who are subscribed in DIGEST mode, you get a package
delivered to you at 3 pm (EST) each day. That was the setting on the
old list, and we carried it over to the list's new home.
What I noticed in reading through the digests is that some of the really
good discussions get truncated, like those old cliffhangers that show a
train heading for the edge of a cliff, only to cut to a note that says:
TO BE CONTINUED
So ... there being 24 hours in a day, and 60 minutes to each hour, we
have quite a bit of flexibility to send the digest out at some other
time of day, perhaps to insure that we get the daily peak times
collected in one digest, so that the thread of a conversation is not cut
off to be continued 24 hours later. But since we have subscribers
around the world, what seems like a sensible time in New York may be
insane to someone (Hi, Sonny!) in New Delhi.
I would welcome suggestions on this to me personally -- PLEASE don't
send them to the list; people who are already drowning in the traffic
will want to kill me -- and perhaps we can tweak things a bit. (I was
thinking of something like 3 am EST.)
Or maybe it's great just as it is; if you think so, let me know that.
It's just an idea, but as I went through the digests, I found myself
thinking that if I were reading the list that way, I would rather have
the digest compiled at some point later in the day, to catch the tail
ends of conversation.
Please feel free to send your remarks to:
tim.oconnor@nyu.edu
Thanks!
--tim