Character of the postings to this list

[George Richardson]

I am becoming increasing uncomfortable with the character of the
positings to this list. In brief: postings have become too informal and
conversational. I liked the list better when there was less traffic a
higher density of messages that seemed crucial to read.

We should realize that the amount of time we have to spend on our e-mail
is limited and that each of us will find ways to budget that time (a
layered bunch of negative feedback loops striving to balance time spent
with time available). I susepct that many are beginning to exert control
over a burgeoning flow of messages to this list by reading selectively --
deleting some messages without reading them, and reading others, perhaps
randomly but perhaps also beginning to select the authors they want to
attend to. We might all agree that is undesriable, but I have to tell
you Im beginning to do that, and so are my students.

We who submit messages to the list can exert some personal control that
would tend to minimize such undesirable but increasingly necessary
behavior. I suggest we consider the following personal guidelines for
submissions to the list:

1) Submissions should give evidence of considerable reflection on the
topic at hand -- they should look like a fair amount of time was spent
contemplating the topic(s) and composing the thoughts sent out for all of
us to think about.

2) As often and as much as possible, submissions should refer to
published literature in our field or other fields relevent to the topic.
We cant rely on the relatively short postings to this listserve to
provide the deep understandings that have been accumulating over the last
forty years of system dynamics experience. We need to point out the body
of work that is building, and we need to talk in this list in such a way
that we contribute to its maintenance and extension.

3) Submissions that are in the character of "I agree with ..." should be
avoided unless they push forward the discussion.

4) Submissions that are really directed toward one person should not be
posted to the whole list.

5) News submissions, like syllabi or assignments or references to
literature available on the web and the like, should be encouraged.

There are probably some further guidelines that would help, but (after
some reflection) Ive been unable to come up with more and would
encourage the suggestions of others addressing the problem I am
perceiving.

I realize these suggestions oppose the sentiments expressed earlier about
the low frequency of traffic on the list. Theres a potential oscillation
here, and Im afraid the pendulum has swung too far in the direction of
unbridled, informal conversation. Lets drag it back a bit toward fewer
messages with a higher density, news, scholarship, and deep thoughts.

...GPR

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
George P. Richardson G.P.Richardson@Albany.edu
Rockefeller College of Public Affairs and Policy Phone: 518-442-3859
University at Albany - SUNY, Albany, NY 12222 Fax: 518-442-3398
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[Paul Hillman]

George,

I am on the system dynamics list only because of a interest in applying the
technology already developed to modeling physical devices that have various
forms of feedback. I have not been an active participant.

Anyway, another list to which I belong has this policy. After an initial
post, all replies go to the sender. After some period of time the original
sender posts a summary of replies and conversations.

=> only two - three postings/topic, irrelavant postings are weeded out
by original poster.

Paul Hillman
hillman@plk.af.mil

[Shaun Tang]

> (snip from SD214) Lets drag it back a bit toward fewer
> messages with a higher density, news, scholarship, and deep thoughts.

One possibility is to split up this current list into two lists.
This one (called Mod) is still a moderated to suit the above criteria
but another (called Unm) is preferably an unmoderated
in order to be promoted to everyone who is interested in (at least
touring) SD. Naturally they are handled by the same list-owner, Bob.

Message can be sent to either one or both lists. However, our moderator
has the rights to move any message from Mod to Unm as if required.
Also anyone observing both lists (of course including our list-owner)
would have an option to relay a message from Unm to Mod for
much discussion.

Regards
Shaun TANG <stang@fcit.monash.edu.au>

["Robert J. Glitz"]

At 06:25 AM 5/17/96 -0700, Jim Hines wrote:

>Id like to point out: This site has been quite remarkable. I believe that a
>number of people (including me) have actually learned something and have been
>motivated to go off and do some more thinking. email (and the internet
>newsgroups) lends itself to this sort of "punctuated conversation". Informality,
>conversational tone, offering partly baked ideas so that others can think about
>them and develop them further -- these are good things. Things which this
>medium permits.

Jim, I agree completely. Im not an academic, nor am I an experienced
practioner. Im project manager on some SD projects and what little I do
know, I get from conversations with my contractor, the little reading that I
can squeeze in, teaching myself Powersim, and this list. I really
appreciate the conversational tone and the less-than-perfectly thought out
ideas and proposals.

I guess this then is one of those "I agree" messages: Id hate to see the
list volume return to its level of a couple months ago -> near zero.

v


Robert Glitz, LtCol, USAF
rglitz@erols.com

[Allen Brown]

Though it has been hard to keep up, at times, with the wide variety of
postings and topics on this list, my hope would be that the tone / nature
of the current postings continue, if not the volume. I confess that I
have had to archive notes on some threads for rethinking at quieter times.

What I like best is that it reminds me of coffee room type discussions,
where people can muse, speculate, and drop thought provoking tidbits,
without being judged by anyone in "referee" or "editor" mode.

Allen
***********************************************
* Allen Brown
* Mathematics, Science, and Technology Education Group
* Faculty of Education voice: 613 545 6722
* Queens University v-mail: 613 545 6000 ext 7431
* Kingston, ON K7L 3N6 fax: 613 545 6584
* CANADA e-mail: brownan@educ.queensu.ca
* web: http://educ.queensu.ca/~brownan/

[jimhines@interserv.com]

In a recent posting (SD0214, George Richardson suggested we tighten up here:
take more care in composing our postings, avoid informal and conversational
postings, stress references to the scholarly literature, etc.

I have a different view of our purpose here; and would like to suggest a
different solution to the problems that prompt George to offer his guidelines.

First, I think that this list is and should remain closer to a conversation than
to a journal article. Postings seemingly directed to one person (but of
interest to others) and "I agree" messages are fine by me. In contrast, while
references to the literature can be useful; I dont see a reason to particularly
require such references.

Id like to point out: This site has been quite remarkable. I believe that a
number of people (including me) have actually learned something and have been
motivated to go off and do some more thinking. email (and the internet
newsgroups) lends itself to this sort of "punctuated conversation". Informality,
conversational tone, offering partly baked ideas so that others can think about
them and develop them further -- these are good things. Things which this
medium permits. And, things which are rare for people who are not in academia,
(and perhaps rare even for those who are).

The surge of traffic has created a problem for those who do not have the
interest or time to go through every message. There is nothing wrong with
filtering. At a party, you dont need to talk to everyone. For many years,
Ive participated in a forum on object oriented programming. I skip lots of
messages with titles that arent of interest; read the ones that are; and
always pay attention to postings by Kent Beck who always says something
interesting.

There is one solution to increased volume we could try: If our volume remains
high, we could move this conversation to an internet news group. The advantage
of a newsgroup is that most news readers can trace a conversation thread. This
makes it easier to follow the conversation, easier to participate in it, and
easier to avoid it if its not of interest to you. The major problem would be if
not everyone with an interest in this list has access to internet news groups.

Jim Hines
JimHines@Interserv.Com

[CrbnBlu@aol.com]

irt: rglitz@erols.com (Robert J. Glitz), Sun, May 19, 1996 5:35 AM EST

Robert commented:

"... Id hate to see the list volume return to its level of a couple months
ago -> near zero."

And I would say this is rather unlikely to happen. In fact, Ill ensure it if
necessary for the traffic over the past couple months has resulted in much
beneficial thought and reflection, which Im not willing to see come to an
end!

Gene Bellinger
CrbnBlu@aol.com

[Stephen Wehrenberg]

Well, if were taking a vote ... Im _not_ for going back to silence.

I just wish I could discipline myself to use the delete key more often rather than
getting interested in the conversations! The difference between this and a
cocktail party is that you can actually go backwards in time to pick up another
conversation that sounded interesting ... which means you never can catch up to
reality ... sigh. Ive learned a lot in the past couple of months.

Steve



--
Stephen B. Wehrenberg, Ph.D.
Chief, Forecasts and Systems, US Coast Guard;
Administrative Sciences Program, The George Washington University;
wstephen@erols.com