File spoon-archives/list-proposals.archive/list-p_1995/list-p_Jul.95, message 42


Date: Wed, 12 Jul 95 15:17:45 EDT
From: ma-AT-dsd.camb.inmet.com (Malgosia Askanas)
Subject: Re: mouthwash, horrific


> Malgosia, your point about conversation intrigues. Several 
> lists I visit perk up only with easy-going conversation, and 
> prepared postings elicit few responses. Laments about lack of 
> substance are usually unanswered or flamed or ridiculed.

John, I assume that by "prepared" you mean: prepared in some sense 
independently of the use to which the posting is put on the given list, yes? 
So there is a self-sufficiency, a certain completeness about the post,
a call for a certain kind of reading and appreciation which is not
usually demanded by less-prepared ones.

So the post already constitutes a foreign body: it demands that conversation 
should arrange itself around it, while it declares itself to be of a sturdier
texture -- or it demands a response in kind, an equally prepared post
to match it.  But in any case, it makes no amends to the ongoing 
thought-process; to the contrary, it tries to obstruct it and turn 
all the attention to itself.  

I actually have no objections to such posts, it's just my curent mood 
that has trouble dealing with them.  I am not necessarily in agreement
with my mood.  But I do think that the treatment such posts call for
is significantly different than in the case of "dialogic" (not
necessarily easy-going) stuff, and may simply be at odds with the
state of mind in which people typically sort through their mailboxes. 


-malgosia 

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