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[email protected] l.vanderloo@rogers.com is offline
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Default Musing about the archives. (very long, but good for the Zzzz's)

I know but I'm not telling GG it happened to someone else !!!!!
Have fun and take care
Leo Van Der Loo
robo hippy wrote:
While I don't use the archives a lot, there have been a number of times
that I go back to find something that I wanted to remember, wrote down,
and then lost my note. The archives work better than my memory. After
all, the second thing that goes as you get older is your memory. (I
can' remember what the first thing is.)
robo hippy
Joe Fleming wrote:
I still go back to the archives here and on WOW occasionally. If I
made, what I consider to be a very good post or response, I generally
will dig it up for another use. Once in awhile, I'll go find someone
else's great post too. M

More and more, however, as our history grows long, I am grabbing the
content now and storing it on my own system for easier retrieval. It
is getting more and more difficult for me to recall when and what I
said (or someone else) to do a proper search. It is easier just to cut
the thread and copy it to an email with a very good subject name, then
mail it to myself.

I even do this with some of this group's musings for our club
newsletter.

Joe Fleming - San Diego
============================

Arch wrote:
I don't get much use out of our archives and I wonder how many of you
do. We often refer others to the archives, but I suspect that's owing to
our recalling a particular discussion we had here rather than from
actually visiting the archives.

Archived threads represent the entirety of rcw's history; roses and
warts, useful and misleading, polite and rude, calm and shrill, but we
are a 'fast food' group. It's easier to ask for or repeat, maybe
correct and update, archived info with a new post here rather than going
to the trouble of visiting the archives. Besides the trouble, like the
opinions brayed by tv's talking heads, just because a thread is archived
doesn't make it true.

What trouble? Well for one thing our threads often depart from the
subject line with the first response and subsequent posts ricochet off
and on the captioned topic. That's ok for the forum and often the
serendipity is 'better' than the subject, but it's not a good thing for
the person looking to the archives for specific info. Try it, I bet you
won't like it!

Posting humorous retorts or 'similar experiences' which aren't at all
similar or OT alternate suggestions or inappropriate url references,
etc. are diversions that may be entertaining and are often
very helpful. IMO they should continue, they will anyway. Not mutually
exclusive of course, but for most contributors to rcw the give and take
is as much for amusement as for teaching or learning something specific
about the craft.

For the sake of making the archives more user friendly, should we at
least wait for the first two or three posts or a day without a response
before detouring from the op's subject? For that matter, should a
subject line ever be changed within a thread? I'm flailng my keyboard
and shouting "Mea Magna Culpa!" to both.

We have had some good housekeeping suggestions in the past, but they had
very short half lives, ex; listing our locations.
Rcw just keeps rolling along as is and
undoubtedly will stay the same regardless of any changes anyone might
suggest.

Do any of you truly find the archives useful except as a referral for
someone else? How? why? what? If you do, any ideas for making the
archives even more worthwhile? You know of course, that nothing will
change, but I'm just musing.

Two will getcha ten that the first response to this mush if any, will
either be a joke or a suggested url re the price of tea in China. So
what! Nothing wrong with that. This ng is to enjoy as well as to learn
or help. Shame that the archives can't be edited, but who can can I
trust to agree with me?


Turn to Safety, Arch
Fortiter


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