Wal-Mart and more

[Dan M]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: brin-l-bounces at mccmedia.com [mailto:brin-l-bounces at mccmedia.com] On
> Behalf Of Dave Land
> Sent: Wednesday, February 20, 2008 1:23 AM
> To: Killer Bs (David Brin et al) Discussion
> Subject: Re: Wal-Mart and more
> Despite the fact that there were some people in the room who could have
> filled an entire afternoon with fascinating speech, everybody --
> including
> the moderators, historian Sean "Worst President In History?" Wilentz and
> former Republican Congressman Mickey Edwards -- strove to be succinct.
> 
> Perhaps we can give each other the same gift?


OK, Dave, let stay under 500 words. 

You posted to state that a significant fraction of my posts are rude because
they are long.  I could spend 20 hours per post cutting down my thoughts to
a small tight post that would be under 400 words for any idea I had. (Which
is a 2 minute speech). I recall that way back when there was a limit of
about 15k in size do to the lower baud rates back then.  

My longest post this year was 1650 words, 1000 of mine and 650 quoted words.
I quoted a good deal because I've didn't want to misrepresent the original
point.

Maybe this deserved an L3 length indicator, but it was borderline according
to our long standing guidlines.  The Etiquette Guidelines do not give a
maximum length.  I thought that abiding by these guidelines was fine.

I could, probably, cut my post lengths down tremendously....as I do when I
submit papers to journals with strict page limitations.  As Nick pointed
out, that is a mark of excellent writing.  But, while I research and write
quickly, the process of compression is slow....as it is for most I know.
So, as I read your suggestion, I will be rude if I wish to include ideas
that need to be well developed and documented if I simply do the work and
submit, as if you were, a rough draft.

So, just to be clear, if I have an idea that is more than a quite aside, you
and Nick think I should find another venue or spend the hours needed to
compress the post into one worthy of publication?  

My I ask a question of sheer ignorance?  What is wrong with seeing the
length of the post, glancing at it and then deciding if you want to read the
whole thing later?  It's not as if this list has enormous traffic any more.

Nick gave me in his last posts questions and propositions that were the very
ones I asked for and I looked forward to discussing them with him. (In short
the communication between us  finally worked and I saw his points that were
worth serious consideration.) However, since I try to be polite, I will
refrain from that until I can devote a day or two per post honing my
responses down to strict, yet unspecified, page limitations or I am told
that I am allowed to write long posts.  

In short, may I please please be given explicit limits to work within, since
following the etiquette guidelines is no longer sufficient. 

Dan M.