List metaphor

[davewitley]

First, thank you to Pippin for clarifying my intent: that was fine, 
Pippin.

I, David, remarked that I had seen the Feedback list as analogous to 
the letters page of a newspaper, in repsonse to Richard's suggestion 
that all the lists are.

Richard went on to ask:
> I'm curious about the basis on which you make that distinction. My 
gut 
> impulse is to assume that you consider the topic of "editorial 
policy" to 
> be the natural topic for a paper's "letters to the editor" page. 
(And thus, 
> this list having been established for the purposes of discussing 
our 
> perceptions of the list and how it's run, this list mirrors that 
function).

Your impulse, though understandable, led you to the wrong conclusion 
about what I consider!   All I meant was that letters (at least, 
those that usually lead) deal with readers' concerns about public 
policy, etc.  In this rather loose metaphor, the HPFGU admins 
correspond to the government, not the editorial team.

> As far as I'm concerned, I don't differentiate between the 
functions of the 
> various HPFGU lists (and whenever I talk about "HPFGU", I mean the 
*family* 
> of lists rather than the Main List. If I ever mean to refer to one 
list in 
> particular, I specify it by name). They are, ultimately, just 
different 
> venues for us to communicate with each other. I actually think that 
> attempting to split their functions (as opposed to their subject 
matter) is 
> unhealthy.

I'm not altogether sure what the difference between separating 
function and subject matter is.  However, let me reassure you, my 
whole metaphor discussion was not intended as an attempt to do 
anything, in terms of list management.  It was merely an attempt to 
explain some aspects of the way we list members interact via the 
lists, in the hope that the explanation would prove helpful to list 
members who are interested in managing their own behaviour better.

I am not even suggesting that anyone should accept any of the 
metaphors put forward; in fact, the reverse, as I see all these 
metaphors as a sort of short-term crutch to help us get used to an 
unfamiliar medium, which in the longer term proves at best 
unnecessary and at worst a hindrance to listies who want to do better 
in the way they interact.  Moreover, I am not really recommending the 
*use* of this crutch, merely airing my suspicion that it is a factor 
in the way we behave.

If anyone is managing fine without recourse to conscious or 
unconscious metaphors, I commend them as an example for the rest of 
us to aspire to.

David