More on Listserv Etiquette

When I am king:

• If you send an 8 MB .pdf file to the listserv, you will be dragged behind the woodshed and shot.
• If the listserv is departmental—making subscription mandatory—justice will also be visited upon your immediate family.
• If you receive an 8 MB .pdf file and immediately forward it back to the departmental listserv, you and your immediate family will be dragged behind the woodshed and shot very slowly—with bullets made of pain—by a hydraulic device of unknown provenance.

This is how the world will be, when I am king.

Comments

[OhIsee]

So you're saying that no one will be left subscribed to this list, is what you're saying.

[SEK]

I pity you if this is the norm on your listservs. On the listserv in question, there are these three people who could, you know, include a link so that those who access via dial-up don't have to wait 30 minutes to download their email.

And then there's the serial re-mailer, who wants to seem important and so forwards everything to the listserv -- who waits, ready to pounce, for anything with the slightest connection with the listserv's purpose and then CC'CC'CC'CC'CC ... but never BCC, because then people on the other listservs to which this person subscribes wouldn't know of his victory on the one I'm unfortunate enough to share with him.

[todd.]

Are there really people on academic listservs accessing them through dial-up connections? I mean, it's never been cool to send binary data to mailing lists, and everyone should know that (remember when AOL first got HTML email, and people dumb enough to use AOL went nuts giving their messages backgrounds?), but it's not like it's choking the ResNet on campus.

[SEK]

Todd., in your department, probably not. But in mine? Well, plenty of people are flung to far, broadbandless corners, and lack the kind of access we're spoiled by. (Believe you me, when I lose this sweet connection, the tears you'll see, they will be real.)

Granted, I speak for those who can't speak for themselves -- it'd take too long for the page to load -- but I also speak for those of us with old computers and creaky inboxes with a flair for The Crash.