Re: COMP - subject tags
- Subject: Re: COMP - subject tags
- From: l*
- Date: Sun, 16 Jun 02 16:27:53 -0600
>Windchime has given us several convincing uses for the labels.
Indeed, Windchime did. Having never used filters on my email program,
that particular application for subject tags never occurred to me. Makes
perfect sense, though. It's really a rock and a hard place kind of
thing. The tags obviously do serve a good and useful purpose for some
list members, but they apparently act as a huge deterrent to others. I
suspect that many of our hundreds of silent members remain so at least in
part because they don't wish to deal with the subject tags ... though I
have no way of proving that. When I search way back in the archives and
see how extremely active this list was in the early years (sure wish I
had been a member back then), I wonder why, in spite of a hugely
increased membership, our message traffic is so dramatically decreased.
I don't mean to suggest this decrease is due exclusively, or even
largely, to the subject tags, but I'd bet they're a significant factor.
I hate to see anyone hesitate to post, or worse yet, leave the list just
because they can't or don't wish to take time to figure out proper use of
subject tags. Perhaps it might be worth it to "trial" a "tags
recommended but not required" policy for a month or two and see how it
goes. After the trial period, John would have a reasonable picture of
whether or not the more lenient policy resulted in increased lurker and
newbie participation and/or resulted in undue hardship for those who
currently make good use of subject tags for filtering messages, searching
archives, etc. It is, after all, difficult to anticipate how any policy
change might affect the list until the policy is actually in use.
Just my two cents worth,
Laurie
-----------------
laurief@paulbunyan.net
http://www.geocities.com/lfandjg/
zone 3b northern MN - clay soil
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