[HPFGU-Feedback] Re: 5 Posts per day limit

[Shaun Hately]

OK - to make things clear before I post, I am a list elf, and I am posting this message from 
my perspective as a list elf. But everything I say is my own opinion and should not be 
assumed to represent the views of the elves as a body.

On 25 Oct 2006 at 10:47, Jordan Abel wrote:

> > SSSusan/Shorty:
> > [...] and there's no reason to consider it a totally closed issue,
> that's for sure.)
> 
> I don't think anything should ever be considered a "totally closed
> issue" - that's what -Feedback is here for, isn't it?

Yes, it is.

And there's nothing wrong with raising an issue here.

However, I do think it's worth me pointing out a few things.

I, personally, am opposed to posting limits. I don't think we should have a posts per day limit. 
I'm not really going to go into why I feel that way here, simply due to lack of time, but I should 
say that a lot of my reasons are similar to ones that you have raised here.

And, perhaps, importantly, I have raised these types of issues myself on the elves own 
discussion forum. A quick check through my sent mail indicates I've been involved in two 
such discussions this year, both putting forward my view that we'd be better off without 
posting limits, but if we have to have them, the higher the better.

And other elves have read what I have had to say, and have responded to what I have to say, 
intelligently and reasonably, raising their objections to the position I've advocated, or agreeing 
with me, or doing both at once.

My point is that the current state of affairs is a *consensus* view arrived at by the elves. It is a 
compromise based on hearing the views of a number of different people on these issues and 
working to arrive at a group decision. Because my skills with the Imperio spell are rather 
limited, I haven't yet been able to force everyone to agree with me - but rest assured that 
when this issue comes up periodically, as most issues do, there are people presenting 
arguments on both sides.

Feedback is very useful because issues could certainly be raised here that we haven't 
considered, and perspectives can be raised here that may not been raised in the elves 
discussions. And we do take those points seriously - I will certainly unashamedly appropriate 
any you've made that I think will make my own case stronger in elfly discussions.

These things are taken seriously and are discussed and debated - even if, because the 
status quo remains in place after those discussions, that may not always be absolutely clear 
to other people.
 
> Then make it 5 - I only said 3 because I was going with the idea
> of
> moving from 3 to 5 being the "wrong" solution to the problems that
> existed with 3 total, and replacing it with a different solution
> instead of adding one, but I don't really care that much - it's just
> a
> number. (personally, I don't see the need for the limit at all in
> "peacetime" - i.e. when we're not in a really hectic time period
> like
> around the release of a book - I think you said earlier that this
> all
> started around the OOTP release?)

I sympathise with your position here, and I agree it has merit - in an ideal world, I would love 
to see this type of thing in place personally - a limit of posts per topic is one I quite like.

But as an elf, I can see serious problems with implementation from our perspective. And bear 
in mind that we are all volunteers giving our own time and energy to trying to keep the list 
running smoothly. Suggestions that would require us to expend even more of our time and 
energy to do that are ones we *really* need to consider carefully.

Unlike real house elves, we don't live to work.

Enforcing the five a day limit overall - well, for me to do that, when it's my turn to closely 
monitor the list involves me reading every message, which we have to do anyway AND 
keeping count of how many times a person has posted that day. Because some people post 
throughout the day, this isn't always easy. Say you post at 9.00am your time. And then you 
post again at 12.00pm and at 12.20pm and at 1.00pm, and then again at 6.00pm and again 
at 9.00pm. 

Other people will have posted between many of your posts. While I am reading I have to try 
and keep track of whether I have seen someone post before that day, and how many times 
I've seen it, while reading using the YG! interface (because the vagaries of e-mail means I 
cannot view what arrives in my personal inbox as definitive), and in my case via a dialup 
internet connection, which is rather slow. If I realise that you've gone over the limit. I also 
need to, to some extent, keep track of two different timezones at once - the one we elves use 
internally, which I think is GMT but I'm not actually 100% sure at the moment, and the 
timezone from which I think you are most likely posting. And both of those are normally 
different from my own.

It's not an incredibly complicated thing to do, but it is non-trivial. It does take special effort.

Your suggestion on a limit by topics, though it appeals to me in some ways, would make that 
task much more complicated. Because now, as well as having to keep an overall count, I'd 
also have to try and classify every post you made by topic - and frankly hope that the topics 
I'm classifying them by are the same as the ones you would classify them by. Then I'd have 
to keep track of how many in each topic - a non-trivial exercise has just become harder by 
something approaching an order of magnitude.

> I do think that the rule should change, and whatever rule it
> changes
> to should not in effect penalize someone for having opinions on
> more
> than one issue (i.e. participating in many different threads at
> once)
> - i.e. if i post in one thread it should not have any chance of
> causing me not to be able to post in another.

Jordan - what about if the changes you are proposing penalise *us* - these things may make 
our job as list elves harder. And we, I think, have a right not to be penalised as well.

Any compromise is going to involve some people not getting what they want. That's a reality.


Yours Without Wax, Dreadnought
Shaun Hately | www.alphalink.com.au/~drednort/thelab.html
(ISTJ)       | drednort at ... | 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