Re: A Scout is Courteous ? Thrifty ?
Settummanque, the blackeagle (waltoml@WKUVX1.WKU.EDU)
Tue, 22 Mar 1994 10:58:01 EST
Patrick G Skelly <scoutldr@AOL.COM> writes:
>LAST WEEK YOU, THE SCOUTS-L COMMUNITY, TRANSMITTED TEN-THOUSAND-PLUS LINES
>(10065 to be exact). I'm not sure just how much disk space it took in
>unedited form, but it was on the order of 500K bytes. I saved perhaps 60 per
>cent after stripping off all requotes, signatures, and personal messages.
Pat and Janez (and others): As Jon would tell you, this past week was
extremely UNLIKE Scouts-L. We've logged more than 400 messages in a
single week (we average about 200 in a "good week", whereby the topics
were kinda "so-so". Since we have been talking about three of our
combined "pet peeves" with the BSA (the lack of professionals to
COMPLETELY tell us volunteers what is to be expected of us in order
NOT to be "expelled" from the program; the constant struggle between
doing what is right for the program and the boys and what is
"recommended" by the National office folks, rightly or wrongfully; and
how exactly do we go about determining what is "Eagle quality" and
what is not) IN ADDITION to our regular questions, answers, gab on
what we've been doing and of course, trivia (answers are coming later
today, after I return from the bank...the Army *finally* paid me
today!! Yea! And I turned down a trip to Fort Knox (my hometown) :( )
As Jon (and I've) "warned" folks coming onto this forum, "BE PREPARED
for a lot of mail...both privately and on the list itself". As folks
are warming up to the idea that their thoughts and feelings on issues
WON'T get "smashed" and that we don't go in for "character
assassinations" or outlandish stupidity (don't laugh, Don Izard! We're
NOT *that* silly!), lots of new "faces" and ideas have swamped this
list, forcing some like me to sit back and read a while instead of
answering EVERYTHING that comes over the list (imagine, if you will,
if you saw a Mike Walton or a Chris Haggerty or some others of us...
Steve Sousa, for instance.... posting on EVERY topic! We would hit
that diskquota line EVERY day SEVERAL times a day!
Don't blame them...I had to beg my system adminstrator here for more
blocks and after he slapped me around for saving EVERYTHING from here
on my account, he increased me to 10,000 blocks. And shameful as it
may sound, as of this morning, I have *only* 22 percent of that left
to use!!!
>Ladies and Gentlemen: it is almost certainly our own vanity (30-plus line
>signatures) and unwillingness to abstract (100-plus line requotes) that
>forced Jani to leave our company.
Nope. Sorry, Pat. It's NOT the "30-plus line signatures" (while we
still have a long way to go there, I think that we've been over this
path before...it's sometimes neccessary for some of us to use
signatures (30 lines *is* excessive, I grant you!) because some of us
get mail with the header information stripped and it results in MORE
postings to the list instead of to the person it was intended for);
NOR the "unwillingness to abstract" (while there are some new folks
that haven't learned yet how to edit a message within their editors,
we can't really condemn them, can we? Besides, as was pointed out to
me in the fall of last year, sometimes our "summaries" of what we
THINK people said can get you in MORE misunderstandings than just
extracting and editing the previous posting). It is the simple fact
that Scouts-L IS becoming the "national electronic Roundtable forum"
we've envisioned when this list was first established.
In other words, fame has it's price.
>I have a suggestion for ListOwner Jon Eidson that he will probably hate to
>think about; but I make it because I truly think we are not capable of
>self-discipline ...
>Any posting which exceeds one page (60 lines) is to be delayed until the next
>day. If it exceed two pages, delay it to the second day following; three
>pages, third day; et cetera. Thus, if our message is important or
>time-critical, we will learn how to edit for brevity.
I don't like that. I have a series of good reasons why I don't like
it, but I'll only give the two top ones. Right now, there are folks
that read Scouts-L on BBSs all over the United States. They enjoy
already a one to four day delay in READING the messages we post here
within seconds of each other. Adding another delay to them robs them
of the information that they are looking for and it also causes
headaches for the BBS adminstrators that have to adjust their software
for intermittant large and small postings.
Likewise, there are many of us that got on this medium to find
answers quickly and without having to wait....we can call the Council
office if we had to wait a day to get a GOOD answer to a long and
complex question, or NOT get an answer at all! The secret to this
list is the fact that at our fingertips literally, are folks that have
had EXPERIENCE in various aspects of our youth programs, not just
Scouting but other groups as well. They are willing to answer
questions we pose here as soon as they can get good answers (which if
you asked me a question about Exploring, I can give you an answer
almost immediately...if it's about Scouting, I will have to dig around
here in the office to find what you need, but still it's a lot faster
than driving to your Council office or writing National...). I feel
that our "subject counselors" out there in various fields would agree
with me. I mean, why write to National to find out when the next
Sea Badge course will be when you have a Sea Exploring Commodore as
a member of this Roundtable (right, Commodore Johnson??).
As the list grows, we get more experienced folks like Brian Davis
onboard, and the circle widens as to how MUCH and PRACTICAL the
information is to what we do as youth leaders.
We all got here somehow because we felt that our youth agency was
limiting the amount and types of information that we volunteers (and
some of us professionals) can share between each other, across state
and Council and organizational lines.
>"What the Scoutmaster does, his boys will do." - Baden-Powell
When the Scoutmaster finds that the building that his Troop is located
within is too small for his growing Troop, a resourceful Scoutmaster
will find ways to hold meetings and activities elsewhere, preferable
outside, rather than to close meetings and send the boys home. This
is something that his boys will pick up on...instead of feeling
defeated when things don't go the way they expected them or wanted
them to go, he will find a new way to attack the situation or a new
approach to getting the job or task done.
Likewise, I am *sure* that Janez is already looking into a way to get
back here. I will miss him and others that had to leave for similiar
reasons. But they will be back, just like I came back here after
moving from Richmond to Greenwood. Remember in your *own* example
there at America Online {tm} that there WAS no Scouting forum until
you and all of us there pettitioned...and then there was NO forum for
us to meet in and we met anyway and made the best of the family forum
area until we get large enough to have our OWN area there.
We're getting larger and more messages in a day is something that is a
part of it....and *personally*, I'm glad that the circle widened
larger to accommodate those from all over the world that have joined
us for fun and friendship and meaningful exchanges of information,
opinion and thoughts about ourselves and our programs that we serve
for the youth of the world.
Settummanque!@HEY! I've got to go and get some money mailed...I've got
people wanting to send me arrowheads and Lego and they've been
held off too long...but not as long as my landlord has been!
--
Settummanque, the blackeagle... (MAJ) Mike L. Walton (
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