[nabs-l] Emailing People Off List

[christopher nusbaum]

Koby,

I am writing to address some of the misunderstandings we have been
having over the practice of contacting people off list. Please
understand that I am not trying to speak for All list members here,
and what I am about to say is purely my opinion. I am copying the list
on this email, so others can express their opinions if they feel it
necessary. However, I wanted to write to you off list so I could try
to clear up some of the confusion And so that there would hopefully be
no hard feelings between you and the other list members, or at least
me.

When someone joins a high-traffic list like ours, that person must
understand that the volume of emails coming through their email inbox
will Increase, at times significantly, as a condition of joining. That
is just a consequence of making the choice to subscribe to a list. If
someone feels that the amount of emails is too much for them, they are
free to unsubscribe. However, we all lead busy lives and consequently
receive many emails per day, many of which probably come from lists to
which we are subscribed. Therefore, we as list members try to keep the
traffic to a minimum when we possibly can. This does not mean we want
to Thwart good discussion; quite the contrary. Indeed, that is why we
have this list in the first place. What this does mean is that we try
to keep what many call "list clutter" to a minimum. "List clutter" are
emails which are sent to the list but do not have contents meant for
the good of the group. When someone replies to a thread on-list and
asks for one person to email them off-list, that request is meant for
one person in particular, not the group. Yes, the person you're asking
to write to you off-list will see that email, but so will  the rest of
the hundreds of people who are subscribed to the list. Consequently,
the rest of the  list members have one more email from the list to
open, read,  and promptly delete. Why do that when you could just look
up the person's email address and email them off-list? Emailing people
off-list is a very good practice, but one of its purposes is to reduce
list clutter by keeping emails meant for one person off the list.
However, it seems to me that sending every request for a person
!contact you off list to the list defeats that purpose.

Also, there are some discussions that have a worthwhile purpose and
would be good to keep on the list because The information provided
would be Useful to the whole group. For example, the recent discussion
about setting up a Gmail account on an iPhone. While I understand your
wanting to help the person who asked the question, the information you
might have provided as to how to do that May be useful for other list
members. Doing this also reduces list cluttered, as we won't have a
bunch of people asking the same question on the same list. Another
example of this is the discussion we had a couple months ago about
training centers. Sophie had asked some questions and shared some
information about experiences at the Louisiana Center for the blind.
You asked her to email you off list so that you could share
information with her. However, there were other people on the list who
were asking questions and contributing to the thread. So, The
information you would have given to Sophie would, if kept on the list,
have helped other people who might have been wondering the same things
as Sophie was. If you want to get into more detailed Discussion on a
certain topic, or if you want to share information that would be of
specific interest to one person, emailing off list would be a good
practice. An example of this was last year when I was preparing to go
to the LCB buddy program. Sophie had mentioned on the list that she
had attended this program the year before. I asked her some initial
questions on the list, but I wanted to know more details from someone
who attended the program before me. So, I moved the discussion off
list so we could discuss the details of the program without cluttering
other people's mailboxes.

We do not have a problem with you helping other list members; quite
the contrary. That is why we are subscribed to this list, so that we
can help each other and talk about things that are of interest to
blind students. We are only trying to reduce clutter on the list for
the good of all of us, including you. We only ask that those who want
to email someone off list write that person off list instead of asking
them on the list to contact you. If you want to provide information
that you feel may be useful to the group, please send that information
to the list. We welcome that information; indeed, that's what we are
here for. I hope this makes sense and that we can go forward with a
better understanding of these issues. If you have any questions,
please don't hesitate to contact me.

Thank you,

Chris Nusbaum

Sent from my iPhone