Something just occured to me.
Of course, we all know that the output of this list is prodigious. On
the other hand, it is also crucial. What's a poor boy to do? I log on
every day, and wade through the first screenful of every message.
Should I read that one? What's he saying there? Should I bother paging
down for 6 screenfulls to get to the third item mentioned in the
subject line? What if he says something wonderful that makes all
cybernetics obsolte? I might miss it! But I've got to get some work
done today!
Other times, the subject is interesting (I WANT to know people's views
on influence vs. control), but there's no way in hell I'm going to go
through the whole thing with you people.
Further, most of these threads are actually excellent ARGUMENTS. Now
you know the structure of an argument: it usually ENDS by either
deciding a point, or at the very least clarifying a point of
disagreement. This is easily LOST in all the verbiage.
I KNOW that there are other subscribers who share my feelings.
So, a request: as a thread is coming to a close, SUMMARIZE! Just
something simple: Cziko said X, Bill said no, X', Marken retorted Y,
and they all came around to see that Bill was right (or whatever).
Indeed, /Closed Loop/ would actually be USEFUL to me if it contained
such summaries. I can always download the logs.
Think "highlights"!
Just a suggestion.
O----------------------------------------------------------------------------->
Cliff Joslyn, Cybernetician at Large, 327 Spring St #2 Portland ME 04102 USA
Systems Science, SUNY Binghamton NASA Goddard Space Flight Center
cjoslyn@bingsuns.cc.binghamton.edu joslyn@kong.gsfc.nasa.gov
V All the world is biscuit shaped. . .