Dear Conch-L,
 
I want to thank Phil and Sher on my own behalf for their forthright replies
to the I WANT OUT!!!!!!!! message.  Their concerns are perennial.  And they
make me think that it is important periodically to think about what this
list is. For those who are interested, here's what I am thinking:
 
Sher, the list is not for scientists. It is for people who love shells, and
that includes you. We certainly are graced and blessed with a number of
scientists who also love shells. And they are some of our greatest
resources in this group. Sometimes they get a little too technical for a
beginner, or someone whose interest in shells is a bit lighter. But more
often they try to help us on our own level. But we need to realize that
Conch-L is for them as well as us. And they have a wide amateur audience on
the list, even excluding beginners. If the list is to serve us all, it
seems to me we are all going to have to tolerate the various levels of
interest of lots of other folks.
 
Conch-L is like a moveable and neverending COA Convention in
cyberspace...about the same number of people as attend a convention, and
with about the same broad range of interests.  Some cowry fanciers over
here in a corner of the hotel lobby talking South African Cypraeovula
hybrids, another bunch on the veranda discussing conservation of the
Unionidae in Ohio, while a program is in progress in the meeting room on
the shelling in Saudi Arabia. Tonight we'll have a social event at which
shell talks will be peripheral and jokes and laughter will rule. And
tomorrow morning is a field trip to collect fossil mollusks. At the bourse
tomorrow afternoon, we'll be able to browse and buy new shell books, and
shell collecting aids.  And see and handle and buy all the shells we could
ever desire. If you get a little tired of what Phil calls "the fray," you
can go off to your room and read a book.
 
The important thing to remember here is that, just as at the convention,
where not all the people are in the same place at once, not all of us have
the same interests or attention or opportunity or patience at the same
moment. Just like on Conch-L, not all of us are online every day, or have
the time every day to read all the messages or  respond to questions we
might have answers to. I too have posted messages or asked questions to
which I have gotten no responses.  All of us have at one time or another. I
bet lots of us remember the time Ross Mayhew complained that he would
rather be flamed than ignored.  <GRIN!>  And we all feel self conscious
when we send a note to the list. We never know when we are going to set off
a widely-enjoyed and highly productive thread or when we are going to be
simply overlooked.  But I think it IS  "overlooked" and not "ignored"
 
For one reason or another the right person to answer or comment on a
particular query  may not see it.  I, for instance, might delete unread a
topic such as "I WANT OUT!!!!!" because I might be tired of it or not
interested.  And in so doing, I might have missed a lot:  the very
interesting  comments Phil made, or questions I could have answered. Or I
might be busy working on American Conchologist, or just in a self-absorbed
mode that day, with problems of my own, and not have the inclination or
time to read all the notes. Or involved with a very different topic and not
willing to get distracted. The "playing field" isn't always level.
 
Another thing about a list: nobody's running the store.  Oh, we have a list
manager and a few basic rules of the list (which include no flaming, no
attachments, and no sales or advertising), but we have no chairman or
referee. It is wholly informal, a sort of happening.  Conch-L, like any
list,  is a discussion area, and to some extent you get from it what you
put into it, be it contributions or attention or tolerance.  There's nobody
who is in charge of seeing that each question is answered, even though we
do have quite a few people who generously and kindly (and sometimes quite
self-sacrificingly) stick their oars in or their necks out and attempt to
be everyone's resource people. (We even have a Question Man!)
 
Also, I think those of us who have been on the list for a long time (It's
over two and a half years old now) do get tired of some of the same topics
cropping up again and again. But this is bound to be the case from the very
nature of the list and the subject matter. We need to remember that new
people come on daily. And the archives are not as easy to access for topics
as we would like.  We can't tell brand new people who have signed on for
help:  "Just go to the Archives" or  "We have discussed that a thousand
times already!"  Aren't their questions, asked for the thousandth time,
just as valid as when they were first asked?   If I personally don't want
to answer that oft-asked question again, maybe I could just sit back and
let someone else do it. I might learn something or get a fresh slant
fromsomeone else's mind. In any case  I certainly should not tell the asker
that it has been asked before and to please catch up. We shouldn't make our
members, new or old, feel the hesitation to ask a repeat question, or
request their answers offlist lest the repetition bore some of us Conch-L
mossbacks.
 
A list is a fluid and changeable thing, made up of hundreds of individual
human units. It is renewed every day, by vacations and trips,  by an
abundance of topics on the table, or a scarcity, by personal obligations
and crises or just being out of coffee, and especially by the signing off
of some and the signing on of others.  We need to go with the flow.
 
Enough soapbox. I've got to get this magazine to press.
 
Lynn Scheu
Louisville, KY