Long postings on AFRO-NETS (5)
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[Here some (final?) comments - except there is further discussion
about the CONTENTS of Claudio's postings D.N. Mod.]:
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I think we should keep Claudio's long postings. I do read them and I
find them challenging.
Flo Harding
London, England
mailto:ComSecTSG@aol.com
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I envy Claudio that he has the time to reflect on the subject matter
and then produce the long treatises that are the subject of such in-
tense debate. Does he have a day job?
It is ironical that the CONTENT of the essays has never stimulated
such a flurry of activity; it is a complaint about the LENGTH that
has got the key-boards rattling.
I urge Claudio to keep writing, the Moderator to continue sending it
out, and the rest of us, if we wish to engage in e-debate to discuss
the substance, and if we don't, to choose DELETE rather than com-
plain.
Cheers,
Charles Douglas
Royal Perth Hospital
Australia
mailto:chardoug@rph.health.wa.gov.au
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There seem to be two simultaneous arguments -- quality and width.
Width:
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For those interested in statistics, I preserve much of the AFRO-NETS
discussion in separate folders. The 75 postings that I have in the
folder with Claudio's postings occupy 550kb, or about 7.37kb each.
The three recent 'Food for a Targeter's Thought' come to a total of
36k, i.e. 12k for each installment.
For comparison, here are the figures for average message size on
other folders without Claudio messages (in ascending order of average
size):
Malaria (AFRO-NETS) folder = 4.7k;
e-drug list (not AFRO-NETS) = 5.5k;
MCH (AFRO-NETS) folder = 7.5k;
Af-AIDS = 9.4k (with no complaints from any of the members about the
length of the messages);
Reproductive Health list = 11k (also with no complaints).
In terms of time downloading, assuming a 14k connection speed (are
there any services slower than that at the moment?) and the consid-
erably larger volume of messages from other sources it can hardly be
that the Population Attributable Risk due to a Claudio message for
excess time waiting at the terminal is very high.
Quality:
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As to the second argument -- about the quality of his writing and
thinking -- well, those who are with sin amongst us please cast our-
selves over the nearest cliff (luckily in my case over a hundred
miles away).
Dieter's initial posting on this subject failed to provide any de-
tailed criticism from his respondent about the nature of the short-
falls in this area of quality. It would be preferable to have some
idea of why the respondent felt the quality was lacking -- which at
least would be a debatable item. Otherwise we get into the "Yah Boo
your writing sucks!" level of debate which will surely scare away
anyone with the slightest anxiety about how they present their
thoughts in future to this group.
Perhaps this is opening the way for writing and thinking courses on
AFRO-NETS to take political correctness to new heights?
Or is it that there is some discomfort with the way Claudio is pre-
pared to stick his neck out and raise questions in a pro-active man-
ner about matters that he finds puzzling -- albeit sometimes in a de-
clamatory and professorial tone? As far as I know, he has never
posted stuff that he says is sacrosanct and immune from challenge.
Why not help him if there are easy answers?
OK, tell me, this is over the 4.3835k limit.
Tony Klouda
U.K.
mailto:anthonyk@aklouda.demon.co.uk
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