Date:         Wed, 28 Jan 1998 23:34:41 EST
From: tink in the sky <mbarker@MIT.EDU>
Subject:      Re: [WRITERS] FILLER: Information about Radio and TV for my Final
              Thesis

Hello, Claudio.

At first I was quite upset about what I saw as your abuse of the
mailing list.  This list is a workshop for discussing writing, NOT
someplace for people to broadcast their personal needs for thesis
information.  Your posting seemed like a kind of "spam" -- a broadcast
using the list for something which doesn't match the purpose of the
list.

I started to write the normal letter to you and your postmaster
pointing out that this is abuse of the mailing list, that you had not
followed the posting guidelines or apparently paid attention to the
purpose of the list, and advising you that I would be removing your
membership immediately.

However, I reviewed the logs and found that while you had joined
recently, you did not (apparently) join only to post this request for
help with your thesis.

Further, a number of recent postings may have given the false
impression that this is a "open forum" for whatever people want to
talk about.  While many threads run fairly fast, far and loose in the
weaving around here, this is NOT an open forum.

This is a workshop for writing.

I would appreciate everyone remembering that, or at least giving a nod
in that direction every now and then...it makes it easier for me to
keep putting my time and energy into keeping the list going.

Please do NOT consider this a criticism of your thesis or the energy
you are putting into attempting to collect information from many
sources.  However, this is not an appropriate forum for such an
attempt.

[on the other hand, I do think that people might want to suggest how
they would go about researching -- or collecting -- the information
you requested.  that would be an appropriate series...do you have web
access?  if so, you really should run your various topics through the
search engines, such as http://altavista.digital.com ]

(incidentally, as a thesis advisor, I try to keep track of what
methods my students have used to gather information and where they
have had trouble.  I often find such mistakes important learning
moments--so you may want to talk with your advisor about the proper
use of lists like this in collecting information)

thank you
tink