Re: [Fsfe-uk] Membership/Recruitment

[Chris Croughton]

On Tue, May 27, 2003 at 09:46:20PM +0100, Ramanan Selvaratnam wrote:

> The word 'thread' itself, in IT terms can be scary for many :-)

Another horribly overloaded[1] term, especially in multi-tasking
environments (cf. task, job, process...).

[1] In the C++ (and others) sense of being used for different things
according to context; with my linguistics hat on I would use
'multi-ordinal' but that would confuse even more people <g>.

Particularly since email is not at all well threaded, mutt is telling me
that "this thread" is at least 5 because some mailers aren't doing
In-Reply-To headers (or people are starting new messages instead of
reply).  And do we include messages sent off-list by accident and the
chain of messages provoked by those?

> Let me share this experience....
> Last Sunday I introduced this quite competent PC owner/user to Mandrake 
> GNU/Linux.
> But only when I pulled out my CDs and tried to partition his hard drive 
> (after about an hour of chat about freedom this and that) did he realise 
> that linux was not something to do with ADSL!!! instead part of a 
> complete OS.

Glunk.  I can see how it happens, though, the philosophical part about
'freedom' gets so interesting that the main purpose of the software gets
lost.

> But he caught up quickly when the proprietary ADSL modem 
> driver issue came up. Infact I learnt today that he has installed the 
> system onto two of his friends.

Great.

> Moral: People tend to nod their head when actually they are getting 
> tired of IT related terms and do not understand me... but with examples 
> they do get the point.

Very often nodding the head, saying "yes", "uh-huh" and other positive
acknowledgements are intended simply as protocol ACKs to indicate "carry
on, I'm still here".  They can be misread (especially by someone who
doesn't use that protocol) as "message received /and understood/, now
go on to the next part".

> >Certainly, we wouldn't use language like that on the web pages (unless -
> >again - previously defined). 
> >
> Now, that is one of the plus points  with AFFS and related webmasters.
> ....good clean, clear and usable websites. Actually a huge plus point 
> that should be harnessed ti the maximum.

Definitely, and that is better than most websites (my own included).

> But in any mailing lists for new associate members we have to maintain 
> some strict policies. Possibly moderated(?)

I think it also applies here to a certain extent.  If someone joins
during a discussion, or misses some messages because they were away or
whatever, then it can get very confusing.

Chris C