[HPFGU-Feedback] What Price Success? Improving Posting Quality on HPfGU

[Barb Roberts]

Just a couple of comments.  I am in agreement that some of the better 
posts are being buried under an avalanche of endless debates.  I don't 
get to my email everyday, so it is easy for me to spot long threads 
where most of the posts are done by a couple of people posting back and 
forth.  Most of the debates have long series of quotes where It takes a 
bit of effort to discern who is actually said, but it's not usually 
worth the effort.  These rapid-fire debates need to be controlled a 
bit, and the snipping should be shorter and so made less confusing to 
the causal reader.

Quotas. Unfortunately it can be tricky to place value judgments of the 
posts, but it's easier to apply quotas. I think that in general anyone 
who posts more then two posts a day should be placed on moderation 
unless the poster has a history of high quality posts.  It scares a bit 
that recently a couple of posts had glaring errors that were ignored.  
Have we given up?  As far as the low-quality debates I think most 
people in these debates are having fun, and deep down know that 
perhaps, they should think a bit before hitting the send button.  Most 
of us know, or ought to also know, that we have not put the type of 
research into our posts that Steve does.  I, for one, certainly don't 
have the time to write a large number of high quality posts. The young 
adults will be back again this summer and without quotas, it will be 
avalanche season again.  IMHO, posts from Steve and Carolyn's are  
enlightening.  Geoff's multiple posts are often written to correct 
annoying errors and as I said earlier this is a necessary function that 
is difficult to do well.  This is an activity that should be 
encouraged.  Most of the rest of us should be limited in what we 
submit.

It seems to me that we have fewer really good posts.  I think there are 
still topics that can be discussed, the well is not completely dry, but 
then again I was a lit major in college.

Barbara Roberts, who believes the best lists are not accidents, but 
take a lot of unseen work.