WSV on the ironies...
Joseph J. Plaud
It is now past 3 a.m. and my plane made it back to Providence a bit
late. At least I'm back home for a bit, though the wife and I thoroughly
enjoyed our trip to San Diego and environs. I have in my sleep-deprived
delirium this morning pondered some relevant points, and I will try to be
brief.
First: Bill Verplanck, no one appreciates and honors your contributions to
behavior analysis more than I. When the pigeon dust settles (a little
operant humor there), I am sure you will continue to be a prolific and
productive member of our virtual community. I simply do not understand,
however, why you choose to air your difficulties with our move so publicly
without checking in with me or Ken first on some of the technicalities that
you have been misrepresenting across the list?
I know that it is impossible to please all the people all of the time, God
knows I've tried. Bill, you speak of "ironies" and yet the greatest irony
of all is that the changes we're making effectively addresses historical
and ongoing gripes that many subscribers to Behav-An have been lamenting
about for YEARS: too many irrelevant posts (whatever that means
specifically), too many posts, not wanting to read all the posts and
wanting to be more selective, wanting more avenues to interface rather than
just via email, wanting more control and access to features of Behav-An,
etc. etc. etc. Our move accomplishes ALL OF THESE GOALS--MEMBERS CAN
CHOOSE LIKE NEVER BEFORE HOW THEY WANT TO PARTICIPATE IN BEHAV-AN AS THE
MAJOR FORUM FOR INTERNET EXCHANGE IN BEHAVIOR ANALYSIS! What is
sacrificed? Well, the only thing I can think of is having to learn a new
email address or web address to post to!
LET ME REITERATE A CENTRALLY SIGNIFICANT ISSUE: IF YOU LIKED THE "OLD"
BEHAV-AN, IF YOU WANT EXCLUSIVE EMAIL INTERACTION, NO WEB STUFF, NO LOGGING
IN, NO PASSWORD, JUST LISTSERV-LIKE FUNCTIONING, THEN, BABY, YOU GOT
IT! ALL YOU HAVE TO DO IS SEND YOUR EMAIL TO:
beha...@www.virtualcommunity.org INSTEAD OF beha...@listserv.nodak.edu
OH YEAH, WE EVEN NOW MAKE IT EASIER TO REPLY TO AN EMAIL TO KEEP THE
INTEGRITY OF THREADS BY FOLLOWING THE DIRECTIONS FOR REPLYING TO THAT EMAIL
YOU JUST READ AT THE BOTTOM OF EACH POST. THAT'S ALL THERE IS TO IT. FOR
THE MEMBER WHO WANTS TO KEEP THEIR INTERACTION WITH BEHAV-AN THE SAME AS
BEFORE, YOU GOT IT. END OF PROBLEM.
NOW, FOR THOSE WHO WANT TO INTERACT WITH BEHAV-AN VIA WEB-BASED GRAPHIC
TECHNOLOGY, HAVE CHATBOXES GOING, SELECTIVELY READ WHAT YOU WANT, FIND OUT
ONLINE ABOUT OTHER MEMBERS, THEIR INTERESTS, THEIR HOBBIES, ETC. ETC. THEN
YOU GOT IT. JUST LOG IN TO:
http://virtualcommunity.org:8080/~behav-an
So, what is the fuss about? I really think it is much ado about
nothing. So, my friends, please lets start using the new address as we
phase out the old. Many of you will keep getting double postings for a
little while, but that will end too shortly. If you have any other
questions, issues, etc., just write to me or Ken Stephens at k...@operant.com.
So, let us together move Behav-An PAST 2000, and keep our venerable list
the way that behavior analysts interact in cyberspace.
Thanks.
Joe Plaud
Soooooo...
At 03:57 PM 8/6/99 -0700, Listmanager wrote:
>From: Yosh Kawahara <ykaw...@sdccd.cc.ca.us>
>
>Bill - when you say that listmembers seem to be voting with their feet,
>are you counting the number of posts to Behav-An, the number of
>unsubscribes, or both as your data? It has seemed to me that the list
>has been somewhat quiet the whole summer and not necessarily in response
>to Joe's latest announcements. Even those who usually post messages with
>an extraordinary frequency seem to have significantly reduced their rate
>over the summer. In terms of listmembers voting with their feet, isn't
>it true that many have unsubscribed in the past because of the
>bothersome rate (and questionable content) of posting by a few? In terms
>of the natural contingencies of this listserv in the past, who has been
>selected to continue in the list?
> I personally appreciate very much the hard work of Joe and his
>colleagues to bring greater flexibility to the online Behav-An
>community. If this change had not been made, I would have regretfully
>unsubscribed from the listserv and, except for the archive, lost touch
>with a resource that has been reinforcing to me (with an intermittent
>schedule that has been increasingly stretched and strained recently).
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