What Price Success? Improving Posting Quality on HPfGU

[tonyaminton]

Dreadnought,

I am glad to hear that you are an elf.  Your views I have found over 
the years I agree with along with your opinions.  Welcome to elf 
hood!!  

I have been following this thread with much interest, although I have 
not put in my 2 knuts.  I also feel it would be discriminatory to 
block posting and new members to the group after HBP.  I love the 
flood of posts right after a book comes out.  In my opinion is that 
we need to make it clear to both old and new members that rudeness 
and inconsideration will not be tolerated to the point of zero 
tolerance.  Where people get banded from posting for a cool down 
period. 

Would it be possible to set up a poll and ask everyone to vote on a 
short list of ways to handle the boards after the release of HBP?? I 
am sure someone already thought of that, if so I am for it!!

Tonya



--- In HPFGU-Feedback at yahoogroups.com, "Shaun Hately" <drednort at a...> 
wrote:
> I am yet another new elf, but am speaking here entirely of my own 
> personal views.
> 
> Speaking personally, I am decidedly not in favour of postings being 
> blocked for the two weeks after the release of HBP. I've been 
> thinking a lot about this, and personally I think it is rather a 
> discriminatory policy.
> 
> I will read Half Blood Prince the day it is released (unless 
> something dramatic happens to stop me - which isn't impossible). By 
> the time a two week posting hiatus finishes, therefore, a period of 
> around 13 days will have passed in which the knowledge of the novel 
> will become far less fresh for me, and I almost certainly will have 
> forgotten many of the points I would be interested in raising.
> 
> Other people will take the full two weeks to read the book, so they 
> will have everything fresh in their mind. 
> 
> So first of all, the idea of closing the list for two weeks is, in 
> my view, discriminatory against those who read the fastest - 
> because they will experience a much larger gap between the time 
> they finish the book, and the time they will be able to start 
> discussing it on HPFGU.
> 
> Second issue, somewhat related.
> 
> Half Blood Prince is due for release 16th July 2005. Therefore any 
> posting moratorium would presumably last until 30th July 2005.
> 
> Now, as I understand it, these dates are generally during school 
> holidays in both the US and the UK (somebody can correct me if I am 
> wrong on that).
> 
> Well, for those of us in Australia, the situation is a little 
> different. It differs from state to state here. In my state 
> (Victoria) both dates dates are during school term. This is also 
> true for the states of Queensland and Tasmania.
> 
> For other states and territories of Australia in Australia, the 
> first date is in the school holidays, the second date is after 
> students return to school.
> 
> So a two week hiatus policy would have the effect of ensuring that 
> many Australians would have no chance to post about the book during 
> a school holiday period, while most people in America and the 
> United Kingdom will.
> 
> This doesn't effect everyone, of course, because for many people 
> school holidays are utterly irrelevant - but as people have 
> apparently identified a pattern of people joining more and posting 
> more during the Northern Hemisphere's summer school holiday 
> periods, it certainly seems to me that those dates are of relevance 
> in considering any policy changes.
> 
> By the same token, the proposal I have seen to shut the list 
> completely to new members during the northern summer has the effect 
> of being discriminatory in favour of those of us in the southern 
> hemisphere - because while northerners would be prevented from 
> signing up during their summer holidays, us southerners wouldn't 
> be.
> 
> I am not saying these issues should necessarily be fatal to the 
> ideas proposed - but I do think there are real potential issues of 
> discrimination here.
> 
> And they do affect me personally, I must confess. My mid year break 
> (at University level) runs from the 25th May to the 24th July.
> 
> In other words, Half Blood Prince is being released a little over a 
> week before the end of my University holidays.
> 
> So a two week posting hiatus would mean that I am unable to comment 
> on the book during a period I am likely to have time to do so - and 
> the list will reopen just as my classes have started up again.
> 
> 
> Yours Without Wax, Dreadnought
> Shaun Hately | www.alphalink.com.au/~drednort/thelab.html
> (ISTJ)       | drednort at a... | ICQ: 6898200 
> "You know the very powerful and the very stupid have one
> thing in common. They don't alter their views to fit the 
> facts. They alter the facts to fit the views. Which can be 
> uncomfortable if you happen to be one of the facts that 
> need altering." The Doctor - Doctor Who: The Face of Evil
> Where am I: Frankston, Victoria, Australia