Why do people on e-mail echoes or online chat lists or discussion boards complain when people don’t talk about what they want to talk about? I know it happens here at the SDMB from time to time, but I’d say it happens FAR less here because you see the thread topic before you open it, and can therefore not open it if it doesn’t interest you. I’m talking about the lists where you actually get the e-mail directly into your mailbox.
OK, admittedly people get too much e-mail as it is, but really, people, get over it. I’m an avid user of Yahoo Groups for a variety of organizations and think they’re just spiffy. In most cases I have my settings set so that I check postings online rather than receive them directly, but there are some I do get daily mail from. I’m also on one e-mail echo for a national organization. The list traffic really isn’t horrible - on average, one a day.
Lists wax and wane, ebb and flow - one month you’ll get a hundred e-mails, the next zero. Sometimes they’ll talk about something that interests you, sometimes they won’t. And invariably there will be someone who will pipe up either, “This list gets too much e-mail - I’m leaving,” or “You’re not talking about the things I want you to talk about - I’m leaving.” (This will, of course, like here, devolve into a lengthy back-and-forth between “fine, then, just go” and “well, they’ve got a point,” and the perennial “just delete what you don’t want to read - what harm does it do?”)
The latest was a Yahoo Group of very, very low traffic. They started off as a Club, and then Yahoo converted all their Clubs to Groups. Right before and right after the changeover, the Moderator was giving people updates on what would happen and when it would happen, and her comparative concerns about switching to Groups. It wasn’t a huge discussion, just her giving us information. Now you’d think, since that was the forum in which we were participating, this could be considered relevant, but now two people have left - one, because she was only there to meet other bi gals to hook up (which was most assuredly not the stated reason for the list) and two because there were too many complaints about Yahoo and not enough chit-chat (as if chit-chat about the Group itself didn’t constitute, well, chit-chat).
It’s not like Groups don’t give you an option - you can set it to receive no e-mail and only read postings online (which is for these people probably the best option - that way they don’t have to read any posts on topics that wouldn’t interest them), you can get only e-mail sent as “special announcements” as deemed by the Moderator (which works very well for one group I’m in - kind of an innane chit-chat filter for people who only want to get announcements of things like events), you can get one e-mail per day with the entire day’s posts digested, or you can get each individual e-mail.
One of the things that gets me is that at least two of the groups I’m actively in are volunteer-based - our life’s blood is the people involved being involved and doing the things to make the organization work. When the only source of communication amongst us is an e-mail list, by leaving the list, they cut off that source of communication (even though they still consider themselves part of the organization). Why are they cutting off their nose to spite their face, as it were?
And, really, what’s so hard to understand about the fact that not everyone is going to talk about things that interest you 100% of the time? If you aren’t interested, just tune it out. Again, I realize this is an old saw here on the Dope (God knows I’ve complained about it myself, and both lectured and been lectured to), and I do understand that getting a lot of e-mail is a nuisance, but stomping off in a huff when it’s the only way for you to keep in touch with the group you claim to want to be a part of… well, that’s just idiocy.
IMHO, that is.
[sub](I know, pretty weak rant, but I’m more confused than annoyed.)[/sub]
Esprix