[MD] introducing

[John Carl]

Aw heck Horse,

I was just joshin' ya.  If you greeted every fly-by-night who pokes his head
through the swinging doors and then disappears....


I do apologise John - (A Belated) Welcome to MD - Hope you have a ball  ;)
>
> Horse
>


I do have a serious suggestion for *qualitying *MD, for the sake of the
archives by  designating chatty stuff as such for the more serious-minded:
We could agree to voluntarily and individually put [CK] at the beginning of
the subjectlines for threads that contain non-scholarly content "CK" being
short for "Chatty Kathy".

I myself don't think it's a good idea, too cumbersome and I'd forget and I
have no idea when a merely social banter is gonna turn serious or vice
versa.

Furthermore, when I'm in a chatty mood, (which is most of the time) I'm
least likely to heed the rules.  How about then designating stuff of
scholarly intent?  I'd go for that.  [SI] Means you are intending to start a
thread of real discussion and possible future research interest.  I admit
there are things I'd like to go back and fetch out, but the mixture of the
deep and the frivolous in the archives can be confusing and disconcerting.

This second way of doing it has the feature of keeping the default the
chatty, social-type communication that makes for a more pleasant group
process, which is off-hand and casual and instinctive, but the focused sort
of serious and deep thinking, which is actually the rasion d'etre of our
presence here,  you designate it as such when appropriate and you're
obviously not gonna forget because you're already thinking.  This also gives
a heads-up to others commenting upon your thread, that you want to keep it
serious.



My first advice of the day, offered from bed, electric blanket on, fresh
snow outside, Lu brought my coffee.

[CK]John