a semi-modest proposal (well it's not immodest, anyway)

[Daniel Walker <walker...>]

As you can see from the header of this message, I'm a pretty active lurker
and occasional poster on Jewish listservs. I apologize of you get this note
on more than one list.

Although the Internet is an international communications tool, it's also a
great tool for local communications. I wrote EMail notes to people in my
town (Knoxville, Tennessee) whom I see on a weekly basis anyway.

THE PROBLEM:
On a few of these lists (perhaps even this one) I've received announcements
of events happening all over the Jewish world. Some of these announcements
have been cheerfully received by the list subscribers, while others have
been met with comments like, "Thanks for nothing. How am I supposed to
attend your little meeting in New York when I live in Jerusalem?" (or vice
versa). All the Jews I personally know live either here in Knoxville or the
San Francisco Bay area, so a great many event announcements are useless to
me and I can't even think of anyone to pass them on to.

A SOLUTION that works well elsewhere:
On a few professional graphic arts lists, we have users of (for example)
PageMaker on both Macintosh and Windows platforms. To save the folks who
use only one machine or the other, we prefix our subject lines with MAC: or
WIN: on messages that only apply to one segment of the group. We also have
added a TAN: prefix for messages that have little or nothing to do with our
legitimate discussion, such as professional humor.

PROPOSAL:
Rather than abstain from posting announcements of local events that might
be of interest to folks from other parts of the planet, let's set a
standard way to save unaffected folks the bother of reading local
announcements. I propose we put "LOCAL: East Tennessee" (or whatever region
is appropriate) at the front of the subject line. If you happen to see an
announcement of something happening in Fargo, North Dakota (yes, there ARE
Jews there) and you don't have the privilege of knowing anyone there, you
can delete the message before reading it.

If you like the idea, use it.

---
The simplest way to stop a flamewar is to breathe deeply, swallow
your bile and just LET an idiot have the last word. - me
Daniel Walker - walker (at) usit(dot)net - Quark XPress (QUARKXPR) list co-owner