Re: I wish we could do away with the 5-star poll

In article <827r14pupj95v5e7c6mq715s6knucdk2kc@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>,
Jack Bohn  <jackbohn@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
>Brad Templeton wrote:
>
>Ideally, yes.  However, I know I'm not much of a starter.  Often
>I have only a small point or thing to discuss, and don't want to
>make my own thread for it, so I'll wait for someone else to start
>a discussion (that I can derail :).

Don't worry, there will be many discussions of a new episode without
prompting a generic thread on the episode.

>
>A lot of posters seem to save their discussion for the poll
>thread.  Other non-starters, or a "it's Tradition!" effect?

It's not a tradition.  It's one way of doing things, instigated
by one person.  ONe could do it many different ways.   
>
>
>>What I don't like is putting it all together, so you end up with a long
>>thread with a subject line that tells you nothing, and half the posts
>>are some random person saying "I give it 4 stars" with some real
>>discussion interspersed among them.
>
>Yep.  Annoying to me, too.  However, even on dialup, it's just a
>momentary annoyance to download all the messages in such a thread
>and grimace when I come on such a response.

Key to this is understanding that USENET newsreaders, even though
using the same design for almost 25 years, still are the best tool
for going through a series of high volume discussion groups.   They
track what you have read and not read, and let you get to the core of
what you want very quickly.

No other tools I have seen let me handle discussion groups with get
hundreds of new messages every day and still get to the meat of what
I want without having to wade through as much cruft.   Of course
there is cruft here, but it's the fault of the people, not the tools.

So it's good to encourage the people to follow procedures that make
the system work better.   Individual threads, with nice subject lines.

I know we won't get that, but at least we can avoid deliberately
going the other way by starting generic "discuss the latest episode"
threads.
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