US/ND-1: Topic Suggestions

Topic Suggestions

Technology Task Force (ttf@abilene.com)
Wed, 28 Aug 96 16:40:36 -0500


The subjects already suggested have generated pages and pages 
of comment, but the one closest to my heart has not been 
addressesed, yet. 

Robert Terry asked for technical standards, and George H Brett 
II pointed out the need for definitions of the terms we 
'assume' have definitions we agree upon. Standards and 
Definitions *must* be explored and accepted, or we can argue 
without end, not realizing we actually agree, but are using 
different terms to describe the same things. 

This is, perhaps, a problem to be first addressed by our 
moderator, Bob Carlitz.

[Moderator's Note:  This is a good point.  I will try to
help provide an overall framework for the discussion as we
go along.  For the first few days, however, I think it's a
good idea to let people say what's on their minds.  I don't
want to force the discussion into channels which the majority
don't find to be the most important ones to explore.]

Another is the volume of words we transmit by including the 
.snip.. to identify the passage to which we are responding. 
Short of preserving every response, what else can we do? Is 
there not more concise way to identify the initial comment, and 
the subsequent responses?

[Moderator's Note:  I would recommend that people minimize
quoting of other messages.  If you haven't looked at the
on-line archive of messages, please do.  It includes indices
by subject, author and thread, which make it pretty easy to
follow a given line of discussion without any quoting of
previous messages.  You can find it at 
	http://www.info-ren.org/projects/universal-service/discussion.html
]

I am not a visitor to 'chat rooms' and am innocent of e-mail 
etiquette which might ease my concerns. It does seem that some 
have redundant self identifiers in their closings, since we are 
to respond only to the given posting address.
With over 250 registered in this seminar, it may tax the 
capacity of our storage if everyone must respond each week.