EMUSIC-L Digest Volume 58, Issue 17 This issue's topics: s/n (8 messages) Your EMUSIC-L Digest moderator is Joe McMahon . You may subscribe to EMUSIC-L by sending mail to listserv@american.edu with the line "SUB EMUSIC-L your name" as the text. The EMUSIC-L archive is a service of SunSite (sunsite.unc.edu) at the University of North Carolina. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Date: Sat, 6 Nov 1993 00:32:26 -0500 From: Fred Mitchell Subject: Re: unsubscribe unsubscribe me as well. PLEASE! the signal to noise ratio is WAY TOO LOW, and the volume is incredible. If you don't unscribe me, I will start bouncing all incomine messages. That was a threat, not a promise. This is my 5th time requesting to be unsubscribed. YOU WERE WARNED. ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 6 Nov 1993 16:12:53 GMT From: Rikhardur H Fridriksson Subject: Re: unsubscribe > the signal to noise ratio is WAY TOO LOW, and > the volume is incredible. If you don't unscribe me, I will > start bouncing all incomine messages. > > That was a threat, not a promise. This is my 5th time requesting > to be unsubscribed. YOU WERE WARNED. I understand you perfectly. In fact I'm seriously thinking of doing the same if this keeps up with the same signal-to-noise ratio. For the ca. last week this list has poured in dozens of mailings daily, taking a considerable amount of time just to go through and discover that only a very few messages are of any relevance to me. Pleas restrain yourself a little. I can understand that lots of people want to help poor Jessica find out about the difference between wave files and midi files. As I recall, the first answer was perfectly good (though missing a reference to an FAQ which in this case clearly what Jessica should have started with). But then follow a number of answers saying essentially the same thing over and over again. This is what Fred Mitchell calls a low signal to noise ratio and this is where I agree with him. Additionally, a number of mailings distributed to the whole list have more relevance to a single person or few persons. Please try to send them private E-mail if appropriate. Rikhardur H. Fridriksson ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 8 Nov 1993 07:03:51 GMT From: lfabrici@CHARLIE.USD.EDU Subject: Re: unsubscribe In article <9311060032.memo.10054@BIX.com>, Fred Mitchell writes: >unsubscribe me as well. PLEASE! >the signal to noise ratio is WAY TOO LOW, and >the volume is incredible. If you don't unscribe me, I will >start bouncing all incomine messages. > >That was a threat, not a promise. This is my 5th time requesting >to be unsubscribed. YOU WERE WARNED. Hey, dipshit! Type "unsubscribe" and then the name of the group and you'll by unsubscribed. If you don't know how to use your machine, don't take it out on us. ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 8 Nov 1993 09:48:33 EST From: ronin Subject: s/n mmm... let's see if i can be gracious about this. first, i think we all need to remember that this list is distributed to a hell of a lot of people, now, and with the internet link traffic flow is even harder to gauge than it used to be. quite a few of us have real jobs, and only get to our mailboxes every now and then. when we do so, i suspect i am not the only one in the habit of simply starting at the tail of the queue and just plowing on through, deleting and responding as i go. this means that a single message in fact get multiple replies, widely scattered in time, since it is viewed piecemeal by so many people. second, replies have overlapping viewpoints which are often of service to the inquirer. some are terse, some are verbose, some are nerdy, some are cogent. i think this is a good thing. at least some people are bothering to interact at all. many questions go unanswered, and there a lot of people out there who are just 'along for the ride'. signal quality is up to all of us, folks. do you have a particular interest? start a thread. third, the s/n ratio on this list sometimes does stink. but it goes in waves, and depends largely on your own level of expertise. i myself get tired of all of the "i've got this and that and what kind of software do i use..." kind of thing. personally, i believe that the synth netgroups exist for this kind of thing. but what the hell. i'm even guilty of it myself, and we don't like to be fascists around here. fourth, unsubscription to a bitnet listserver is not always a piece of cake. gating nodes change, interpretive software and various hubs is modified without notice... all kinds of things happen. that's what the list owner is for. go ahead. give joe a hard time. (evil teehee.) -----------< Cognitive Dissonance is a 20th Century Art Form >----------- Eric Harnden (Ronin) or The American University Physics Dept. 4400 Mass. Ave. NW, Washington, DC, 20016-8058 (202) 885-2748 (with Voice Mail) ---------------------< Join the Cognitive Dissidents >------------------- ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 8 Nov 1993 15:53:31 -0600 From: Ken Fansler Subject: Re: s/n Eric, I respond by applauding in your general direction.... We've had no trouble here at Illinois State U. unsubscribing. But you know what? I'll bet if we DID have trouble, we would probably not throw things around the room in anger. We try to keep a sense of humor here in the midwest. Keep up the good work. Ken Fansler kwfansle@ilstu.edu -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- "Can't we all just get along?" - Rodney King 1992 ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 9 Nov 1993 11:15:48 -0500 From: "Joseph D. McMahon" Subject: Problems with EMUSIC-L Rikhardur H Fridriksson writes: > I can understand that lots of people want to help poor Jessica find > out about the difference between wave files and midi files. As I recall, > the first answer was perfectly good (though missing a reference to an > FAQ which in this case clearly what Jessica should have started with). > But then follow a number of answers saying essentially the same thing > over and over again. This is what Fred Mitchell calls a low signal to > noise ratio and this is where I agree with him. This is unfortunately the nature of an electronic mailing list. It is next to impossible to know that someone else will write an answer to a question, Also, there are a fair number of people who aren't major-league contributors to the list who nonetheless can sometimes answer a question. I personally welcome this. I'd rather see a list which is fairly busy and friendly at the expense of some noise, foolery, and semi-personal messages. I never envisioned this list as a dry, academic forum, where postings must meet strict criteria. A mailing list is by definition an organic beast; it is constantly changing in membership and size. It goes without saying that as its composition changes, its flavor will change. If the traffic interms of the number of messages is too steep, just send a mail message to listserv@auvm.american.edu with the text SET EMUSIC-L DIGEST and you'll get a daily digest of all of the messages instead of large numbers of them throughout the day. I agree that personal stuff should indeed be addressed to specific persons, but Jessica's inquiry was not personal, and it happened to be one that a number of persons could answer. I'm glad they did. I hope they'll keep doing it, too. --- Joe M. ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 9 Nov 1993 11:30:03 -0500 From: "Joseph D. McMahon" Subject: Re: s/n ronin writes: > fourth, unsubscription to a bitnet listserver is not always a piece of cake. > gating nodes change, interpretive software and various hubs is modified > without notice... all kinds of things happen. that's what the list owner > is for. go ahead. give joe a hard time. (evil teehee.) > You FIEND! I guess I'll just have to start downloading disco soundfiles to the SparcStation in the Physics Department. Then again, you might retaliate with loops of "Achy Breaky Heart", so maybe I'd better not. :-) --- Joe ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 10 Nov 1993 19:32:43 -0500 From: The Bare Facts BBS Subject: eeek! Re: Re: s/n > You FIEND! I guess I'll just have to start downloading disco soundfiles to > the SparcStation in the Physics Department. Then again, you might retaliate > with loops of "Achy Breaky Heart", so maybe I'd better not. :-) Geez, you guys fight dirty. :-) Maybe I'll FTP some .wavs of the Go-Go's to you. 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