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hi charlie At 23:58 99/01/10 -0600, you wrote to john cottingham in part: >I appreciate your perspective as an active- long timer and >especially your more active involvement when I first joined >the list several years ago. your wording here could be interpreted by some as your saying that you value john's opinion more than others and maybe that is what you are saying and maybe you are perfectly well entitled to say it but i detect a tone some where in those words or in between the lines that you judge or evaluate one person's contributions more than another's which is fine we all do but we don't all then take our personal opinions a step further and analyse/judge the whole list and deem it 'decaying' because there aren't enough of the 'quality' members contributing or because there are too many of the 'non-quality' members taking up space i don't intend this to sound harsh but rather straighforward and maybe even blunt i may be wrong but my interpretation of the 'fear of posting' or 'intimidation' is that it is based on the criticisms in your survey-related messages >I hope that you and others are not taking my attempt >to look at the list as an attempt to force my opinions >or views on others.. When this whole debate started >with my doing the survey with an unfortunate title I >was trying to get a sense and give the list a sense of >where peoples opinions lie. I am overwhelmed by how >negatively the asking of questions has been taken. i don't understand why you can't see that the questioning would naturally be taken as criticism you declared that there was a 'problem' and wanted to take a survey to see how it could best be 'fixed' >An organism like the list if it does not develop self-awareness >it will be carried along by forces of its environment and its >innate structure for better or worse. what is wrong with that? if anything? what do you mean by 'for better or worse'? who is to say that this 'organism' is not 'self-aware'? what do you mean specifically? >I don't see anything wrong with taking a look at ourselves and >reassessing our purposes and goals from time to time. We may >well find out like you suggest that we are accomplishing pretty >much what we want to accomplish. But we should take a look at it. >Just as people grow by taking stock of their lives once in a while >I think it is healthy for the list as well. certainly self-examination and questioning is healthy for anyone but whose goals are you referring to? barb patterson's goals in starting and maintaining this list? why not ask her? your goals in subscribing to the list? only you can answer that my goals in subscribing to the list? only i can answer that - and my goal has been fulfilled to overflowing the list may be a growing dynamic organism in one sense but it still has 1600 brains and 1600 sets of goals >I do not think the list is a democracy of course it isn't! it belongs to barb patterson - it's her baby - her sweat - her tears it is through her benevolent supervision that we can feel as free as we do to say what we want the concept of e-mail is wonderfully freeing and democratic-feeling but using this list is a privilege not a right >or necessarily should be ruled by majority rule. how could it be - ??? when barb patterson is the sole person responsible for its initial creation and its ongoing existence? she may keep a very modest and low profile but i never forget the selflessness and generosity of her spirit it fills this list and me when i participate >But if we know what we want to accomplish and can reach a >consensus about it we have a much better chance of maximizing >our value to the PD community. What do we want the list to be >and are we accomplishing that goal? Does anybody see a problem >with that as a discussion topic? well, yes, i do, and have done since your survey was posted for all the above reasons if there's any one person who is entitled to say what's wrong and what's right and what needs 'fixing' about this list it isn't you and it isn't me it isn't barb mallut or ken becker or don mckinley or judith richards or kathrynne or murray or ervin or bernard or joan or lisa or stacy or art or donald or david or martha or mary or even al it is barb patterson but, all this is just my opinion i could be wrong... janet janet paterson - 51 now /41 dx /37 onset - almonte/ontario/canada <http://www.newcountry.nu/pd/members/janet/index.htm> [log in to unmask]