[Shotimes] RE: S/N Ratio, was Gingerman Track day hosted by TCCA

[Ron Porter]

I don't think it's necessarily a Digest issue. In fact, I believe that Bill
accesses Tech SHO from the web interface (thought of it after the post).

Honestly though, I can't understand why anyone uses the Digest feature. I
have tried it off & on over the years, and it is way too
clunky......especially if you eve want to respond (it may be slightly better
for pure lurkers).

In years past, when there used to be a LOT more posts to these SHO lists, I
had been away for a week under both a digest mode and single posts, with
anywhere from 1,000-2,000 posts collected up. 

My overwhelming verdict is that I could get through 1,000+ posts way more
quickly with individual messages than I could with a Digest. I normally sort
by date/time, but with a big backlog of messages, I sort by Subject. I can
hit the original post, then look at one of the newest to see if the thread
moved off-topic, and then I can either read them, or blow away the whole
group. Ten there are certain topics that I would just blow away immediately
without reading, as they did not interest me. This is WAY quicker than
scrolling through a Digest.

Ron Porter

-----Original Message-----
From: Mark LaBarre [mailto:monsieurboo@aol.com] 
Sent: Sunday, August 28, 2005 8:09 AM
To: TechSHO@topica.com
Subject: RE: S/N Ratio, was Gingerman Track day hosted by TCCA

>> What Mail Client do you use? Your responses appear at the bottom  of most
>> posts, and I had to fish WAY down in this one!!  If you  can't get it to 
post your response
>> at the top, might I suggest that you clear out all of the prior  posts 
before you respond?
>> Ron Porter

Right on Ron, your suggestion is really welcome.  Anyone who gets  the 
digest, like I do, is faced with roughly an 80% - 20%  "haystack-to-needle" 
situation -- about 80% of it is regurgitation of  entire previous posts.  

The usual reply to this complaint  is that we need to see the back story 
behind the reply to a previous post in  order to keep it in context.  I
won't 
dispute that, but surely it could be  excerpted.  

And most of all, if we could just take a bit of  trouble in our replies to 
nuke all the spam ads for hemorrhoid cream,  instant-approval online loans
from 
La Cosa Nostra, miracle weight loss pills  etc. that bombard us at the end
of 
e-mails from certain mail services!   It's irritating enough to be forced to

wade through that stuff  once, but to see it repeated ten times with each 
latest reply is a royal  pain.  The same goes for some of the
extended-sig-line 
text,  particularly the variety best suited for bumper stickers.  
 
This list's actual topics are certainly more focused than SHOTimes, but
many 
of the replies themselves are even more cluttered.  Let's  all do our part
to 
keep the S/N ratio up, thanks very much for your  consideration.

Cheers
Mark LaBarre
94 atx  130k