Catching up on a few thoughts.

[Geoff Bannister]

Geoff:
I hadn't visited the Feedback group for some while and was greatly 
surprised to find that so many posts had arrived, mainly in February, 
and that I had been elevated to the status of having invented the 
term "tennis posts".

I shall treasure that honour.

A few thoughts crossed my mind on reading through many of the 
accumulated messages. In passing, I hope that I am not contributing 
to threads which are now considered to have gons off the boil.

In respect of "tennis" posts, many of you picked up on my 
interpretation wich was that it was the type of post where we go into 
a "Oh yes it did"/"Oh no it didn't" exchanges without any real added 
contribution being made, which also gradually extended the length of 
the message because it often isn't being suitably truncated.

Someone referred to my ability to locate an archive message. I am not 
always infallible but, as a guide to how I work, I repeat the 
following which I basically wrote in  message 519; I have updated the 
passage slightly to allow for the passing of time:

"Finally, the wretched search facility. One problem is that even if
you start from an older message number, the search always begins from
the latest one. The only way seems to be if you have any idea
whereabouts the thread was numerically and dive in and look on the
main message listing. What I have found useful is to keep my own
archive. Fairly soon after I joined the group 18 months ago (my first 
post being 73361), I realised that the search engine was about as 
useful as a chocolate teapot when it came to anything more than about 
500 posts back so I started to save my own posts (which have now 
reached about 1300 in the 52000 group posts whihc have arrived in 
that time) and I transfer them into Word files holding 200 posts. Let 
me hasten to say that this is not a display of overweening pride but 
it often proves to be very valuable if someone queries an older post 
where I had put in my two-pennyworth because I can track down 
something of my own usually within a few minutes. It has saved me 
many a frustrating session with !Yahoo's little toy."

I think the trouble with the search facility is that we are a very 
high volume posting group. It is a pity that the Yahoo system can't 
work like the search method in Word where the search works forward 
from the point that you have reached and then offers the option of 
returning to the start.

On the subject of limiting postings it is a fact that the volume of 
posts can vary considerably. I went away on holiday last week and 
returned home expecting to have to wade through 800 posts or so; to 
my surprise there were only 400. It may be that we are twiddling our 
thumbs waiting for the arrival of 16th July but the number of threads 
seems to have be quite small and there does seem to be some evidence 
of some tennis being played or at least warming up on the baseline.

I was not a member of the group when OOTP came out but the idea of a 
closure to new messages seems a very worthy one - though 45 hours 
last time seemed a rather odd figure.

Finally, on a tangent, I do find it annoying sometimes that some 
posters are rather cavalier with their correction of spelling errors 
and grammar and I am speaking of folk who I know are native English 
speakers. I refer to those who do it as a matter of course and not 
the occasional typing error which leaps out at you three seconds 
after you hit the Send key. I have a number of off-group contacts 
with group members for whom English is not their first language and 
problems posed by native speakers can sometimes lead to 
misunderstandings and misinterpretations. 

I hope that these thoughts might add something useful to the on-going 
discussions.