[Oman-l] List quality

Mon, 6 Nov 2000 22:53:14 +0100

Well said and point well taken.
Tommy

> 
> Dear Tommy, dear list members,
> 
> As much as I hate it to act against my own conviction that this list
> should carry messages of relevance to Oman and nothing else, I would
> like to reply to Tommy who has raised the question of the quality of a
> list.
> 
> * PALESTINE
> 
> First of all, however, I wish to make it quite clear, especially to
> those who object to postings about the Palestine issue because they hold
> different political opinions, that my personal support for the
> Palestinian cause is unequivocal. It is my firm believe that there can
> be no lasting peace without at least some sort of justice. You cannot
> put offender and victim on the same level and ask them to come to terms,
> as most Western governments would like to have it. Despite the enourmous
> outside financial and political support without which the Israeli state
> in Palestine would have collapsed a long time ago, Israel will not
> survive as a state unless it changes its basic ideology, puts an end to
> immigration and the unfortunate settlement policy, and accepts the fact
> that their community in Palestine can only continue to exist if and to
> the extent to which they get it accepted by the Palestinians. I find it
> a great tragedy for all the Israelis - which are no better or worse
> human beings than any other in this world, and perhaps better educated
> and more skilled than many - that they live in a state which was built
> on false premises and which is not providing them with the peaceful home
> every human being deserves, but it is up to them to change the character
> of their state and to stop victimizing the Palestinians. 
> 
> The above is a very, very rough outline of my personal opinion and not
> to be taken as any sort of analysis of a problem which has many aspects.
> Being realistic, I can only hope that what is left of the peace process
> will be carried on in one way or another by the two sides. But leaving
> realpolitik aside, I needed to say what I have said above because I do
> not wish to leave anyone in doubt about my motives for objecting to
> postings about the Palestine problem in this maillist. Mind you, I did
> not write this to start the discussion afresh -  if you need to voice
> your objection to my views, write to me personally.
> 
> 
> * QUALITY OF THE LIST
> 
> - Firstly, the quality of the list depends very much on whether the
> postings are highly relevant to the topic  the list has been created
> for, i.e., Oman. In that respect, even a trivial posting about Oman adds
> more to list quality than a brilliant analysis on a topic not, or only
> remotely, associated with Oman. In that context, contributions on Omani
> reactions to the events in Palestine are without doubt highly relevant
> to the topic of the list. 
> 
> - Secondly, amongst those who unsubscribed were members whose views on
> Palestine are not very far from mine, but if you receive hundreds of
> e-mails every day, you try to cut down the influx of messages to what
> you really want to get. They have subscribed because they want to read
> postings on Oman, and if they find there is too much non-Omani stuff on
> the list (however relevant this stuff may be in another context), they
> sign off. 
> BTW, this list has not been able to attract a number of first-class
> experts on Oman whom I invited, simply because they fear their joining
> the list will result in their mailboxes being filled with a lot of
> messages of little relevance to their interest in Oman.
> 
> - Thirdly, the aspect of quantity, i.e. number of list members, should
> not be discarded lightly. For a good discussion list, it is certainly
> better to have a handful of active members plus perhaps a silent
> audience of a few dozens who throw in some comment occasionally. On the
> other hand, I did not conceive of this list as mainly a discussions
> list, but rather wanted the list to become a useful tool to quickly
> distribute Oman-related information (other than daily news which
> everybody can follow in the Omani newspapers on the WWW), to find an
> expert on a certain topic, to provide answers to a specific question, to
> match people with common Oman-related interests. With this aim in mind,
> the list needs to have as many Oman-interested subscribers as possible
> in order to serve its purpose. The problem is: if you want many 
> subscribers, you must keep the difficult balance between too much and
> too little list activity. I could try to achieve this by making it a
> moderated list, but this reminds me too much of censorship and also
> delays postings unnecessarily, especially when I am busy with other
> things. 
> 
> To those who have been active in discussions rather than doing 'one-way
> postings' recently: don't misunderstand me  - I did enjoy all your
> contributions and certainly prefer an active list to a dead list. 
> 
> This has been a long message, and I fear I have alienated some
> subscribers and have not done justice to everybody.  I hope no-one will
> leave the list just because my political opinions differ from his or
> hers, although I understand that for those in the region these things
> matter more than they might matter to me here far away in Europe.
> 
> Sincerely,
> Joachim Duester
> 
> http://oman.org/maillist.htm (general info on oman-l)
> http://oman.org/mailman/listinfo/oman-l (list website)
> http://oman.org/pipermail/oman-l (list archives - without the
> contributions to the old Oman list, March-November 1996, which included
> the famous purple dishdasha debate !)
> 
> 
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