e-mail: some suggestions (136)

Willard McCarty (MCCARTY@VM.EPAS.UTORONTO.CA)
Thu, 12 Jan 89 19:42:31 EST


Humanist Mailing List, Vol. 2, No. 493. Thursday, 12 Jan 1989.


(1) Date: Thu, 12 Jan 89 14:48:05 EST (92 lines)
From: "Charles W. Tucker" <N050024@UNIVSCVM>
Subject: SUGGESTIONS

(2) Date: Thu, 12 Jan 89 19:52:33 GMT (25 lines)
From: AYI004@IBM.SOUTHAMPTON.AC.UK
Subject: Snobfuscation

(1) --------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Thu, 12 Jan 89 14:48:05 EST
From: "Charles W. Tucker" <N050024@UNIVSCVM>
Subject: SUGGESTIONS


Dear E-Mailers, Bitneters, and Bitnoters:

Several months ago I became familiar with Bitnet and since then I
have spend much time finding out about it, communicating with colleagues,
joining various groups, getting addresses from various places throughout the
world and, in general, exploring the possibilities of using this means of
communication to serve my purpose of answering questions about human behavior
that I have been struggling with for many years.

I have also received past notebooks of communication for several
groups as well as read all of my current mail. From my reading I have
noticed a number of concerns that people have about communicating by E-mail
but I have rarely noticed any solutions for the concerns that goes beyond -
just keep writing and maybe it will work itelf out. The concern that I
noticed most often was not being able to adequately explore, explicate,
examine or develop ideas within the boundaries of E-mail. This made me think
of some ways to deal with this concern as well as several other means that we
could use E-mail to further our interests.

Several of these suggestions may have been mentioned before my time
(i.e., Before Bitnet) while some I have noticed used only occasionally but I
have not seen mention of these. I offer them in the spirit of furthering
the conversation. They are:

--the idea of posting conference notices, making bibliographies
available and making unpublished papers available is great
but I would add to this mode that we ought to let each other
know about particularly useful books, articles, papers and
persons relevant to an issue or problem. The sort of thing I
have in mind is a note which says "I have been working on "X"
recently and have found A, B, and C quite useful because ..."
It seems to me that this type of note would be just as useful
as those where a person will ask if anyone has any information
about a topic. Of course, recent findings from research would
be treated in a like manner

--recently I travelled to Arizona and California on partly business
and partly pleasure and thought that I should have let others on
the "network" know I would be in certain places so that we might
meet and talk about matters of mutual interest. I could have
placed a note of the times and places of my availability and
anyone interested could have let me know of their availability
and interest in meeting. This could be done for travel of any
type including travel to professional meetings; it seems that
it would be useful for further discussion of ideas to know
those face-to face that we now know electronically.

--this same sort of "notice" could be used to notify others of a
colloquium that is being presented as well as "advertise" the
availability of a colloquium. What I have in mind here is that
many places have a "colloquium series" each year and either have
the same people or have a difficult time getting anyone to speak
on the topics of interest to the group. What could be done is
that a person notify the possibility of a colloquium "slot" on
a certain topic and those with the interest and time available
would respond to the notice. If more information was needed
(abstract, vita or the like) then this could be send by E-mail.
I think this would be worth a try.

--we could notify each other of the availability of data that we
have that others might use as well as the current practice of
asking for data or for data sources. Many persons have these
data on files anyway so mailing them would be a slight problem.

--we should continue to announce the availability of positions
but I would add to these announcements, notification of new or
present graduate programs where graduate assistantships are
available for the better students. There is much concern
about the positions that will be available in the academy
the next 10 years so we should begin training people for
these positions.

I hope that these suggestions might be useful for furthering the
conversations on Bitnet.

I hope that you will generate some and tell me on Bitnet.

Chuck Tucker


Charles W. Tucker (Chuck)
Department of Sociology
University of South Carolina
Columbia SC 29208
O (803) 777-3123 or 777-6730
H (803) 254-0136 or 237-9210
BITNET: N050024 AT UNIVSCVM
(2) --------------------------------------------------------------28----
Date: Thu, 12 Jan 89 19:52:33 GMT
From: AYI004@IBM.SOUTHAMPTON.AC.UK
Subject: Snobfuscation


R. Goerwitz has me scurrying around in my back files checking for bits of

impenetrable, and hence, offending jargon (one day I called the network a 'big

blancmange'; would 'bland pudding' have sufficed?, etc.). His two recent

comments on Humanist's discourse have been wise, and make me wish the

network was more like the old kitchen table. Could such opprobrium also

cover pompous and arrogant manifestos in the name of those empty concepts

'seriousness' and 'professionalism'?



Still checking my own closet,

Brian Molyneaux (ayi004@uk.ac.soton.ibm)