RE: Flash

> From:	Dan Connolly [SMTP:connolly@w3.org]
> 
> I'm curious what led you to believe that this was
> a good place for your question.
> 
> 
[DJW:]  I'm afraid the answer is "html"++ in the
list name.  This happens with other lists and news
groups which have words known to popular computing
culture in them.  I used to be on a group called
alt.comp.hardware.homebuilt; this was intended for
people designing at board level with microcontrollers,
but soon started getting "what's the best motherboard"
type questions.  They tried to create a new group with
a name targetted more to that sort of question, and to
change their own name, but the result was cross-posting
across all of them, as well as half a dozen others.

There's also an issue as to how you respond.  If you ignore
or answer off list, someone will likely give an off topic
answer on list and legitimise the question.  If you go on
list saying the question was off topic, the questioner 
often won't believe you and you end with a flamewar.  About
the best strategy I can think of is a minimal reply, pointing
to a specific source of information, with a note that the
question was off topic.

Also, with an off topic question, the reply may be misleading.
On this list, the reply is often going to include proprietory
HTML, if not invalid HTML, without any warning, in which case
the thread extends with the correction.  I'm probably as guilty
as many others of failing to go off list early enough.  (However,
I did reply off list to the initial question here.)

This should probably have been sent off list, but I seem to
remember, in the past, that I'd just get an auto reply saying
that you might not read the message for a long time as I'm on
your list of interesting correspondents.

++In popular culture, HTML means almost anything that can be made
to influence the behaviour of IE or NS remotely.
-- 
--------------------------- DISCLAIMER ---------------------------------
Any views expressed in this message are those of the individual sender,
except where the sender specifically states them to be the views of BTS.

Received on Thursday, 14 December 2000 14:20:51 UTC