Main List Problems

[Grey Wolf]

Lorrie wrote:
> Okay, this is for all those (Namely Grey Wolf ) :) who think that I
> am the one who's wrong. Let's forget tone, attitude, and 'talent'.And
> yes I do have knowledge of the books and the movies, and the 2 school
> books. Just for the sake of argument. Do I remember everything all at
> one time? No. But, I do try, and when in doubt I look it up.

Ok - so you look it up. That's the next best thing. Do you also look up 
the rules before posting? Check if you are breaking any rules? See, I 
don't care if you can or cannot remember the entire canon. I just 
pointed out that, in this list, those that post regularly *do* carry 
the whole canon in their heads, and that, compared to that, remembering 
the rules is not only easy, it is expected. You were sent a copy of the 
rules when you joined. I still have it, and re-read it often, to keep 
up to date. When the HBF was shortened, I kept both.

See, I'm not attacking you, nor criticising your lack of memory. Only 
pointing out that, in this list, you're expected to follow the rules. 
You can learn them, reason them out or simply check them after 
finishing each post. The way you do it is up to you, but I don't think 
it is unreasonable of anyone here to expect all the others to follow 
the rules. And of course, if you find it unreasonable, no-one is 
forcing you to stay. Create another HP discussion, put your own rules, 
and run it without forcing anyone to follow them. One word of caution, 
though - such rule-less groups of HP have been tried and degenerated 
*very* fast in the past. That is why I'm concerned about what is going 
on. I don't want HP4GU to follow the same course.

> What are you prepared to do? What can we do about the Main List
> Problem? 

I'm prepared to have a nice, calm discussion where everyone expresses 
their point of view and reasons it out, so a solution as perfect as can 
be thought out is achieved. For the last couple of days, we've been 
discussing back and forth, examining and cross-examining each other's 
ideas, and we've got to the point were some of them look feasible. 
Problems were identified, causes isolated and solutions proposed, 
teared to bits, reconstructed, refined and given a polish. Not all 
solutions worked, but that's to be expected. And, IMO, this has proven 
much better for the main list than your "wait and see" idea.

> I really do believe that it will calm down.

Yes, I heard you the first time. But then, even as now, there is no 
reasoning behind it in the post. You might have experience in this 
matter or some knowledge of the ways these things work, but if such is 
the case, you haven't told us about it. And it's a little difficult to 
believe a theory without the reasoning, I'm afraid. 

You did mention being in another list were things got better - Star 
Wars. Well, I can give you two places were it didn't: EV Nova forum and 
the WoW forum. What they are about is irrelevant (videogames, in case 
anyone is particularly interested). Both became awashed with newbies 
just like this one and they never got better. The first one (last I 
heard) was closed down, deleted and rules heavily changed. The other is 
still going, but calmed discussion is impossible at this point.

Furthermore, several listees have written their point of view. Me, 
Haggridd, Melody, etc. We've pointed out that rule breaking is 
self-encouraging. That an ambient were rules are broken without 
consequence encourages to keep breaking them. And we've pointed out 
that this is what is happening right now. You have not given our 
arguments any counter-arguments, and thus they still hold.

> I do believe that
> people will...eventually....get around to reading all the rules, and
> following them. If they don't if they keep doing what they are doing,
> people will not respond to them. It's simply a matter of time.
> 
> Lorrie

On the contrary. People that are breaking the rules are answering one 
another - and as long as they do so, they won't feel compelled to read 
the rules. Because some of those rules - like snipping - are unheard of 
in other forums, people from such forums just copy the enrtire old post 
(or their browser does it for them) and they just scroll to the bottom 
and add "LOL" and post. The original member gets it, copies-pastes and 
send backs with "thanks". This takes, tops, five minutes. A careful 
post takes, on average, an hour. In that time, there have been 12 one 
liners. Probably even more. It is self perpetuating because those that 
write one-liners and can't be bodered to snip answer each other and 
transform the rules, from those written (de jure) to those obeyed (de 
facto). 

To give a RL example: in my own country, something similar happens. 
No-one respects speed limits, and since no-one does and police seldom 
give out speeding tickets, they keep doing it. It's been like this for 
20 years now. Sincerely, waiting for people to read the rules didn't 
work in that case, I don't see why it should work in this one. Care to 
express your reasoning?

Hope that helps,

Grey Wolf