Date: Tue, 22 Jun 2004 16:56:11 -0400 (EDT)
From: "Keith F. Lynch" <kfl at KeithLynch.net>
To: WSFA members <WSFAlist at WSFA.org>
Subject: [WSFA] Re: Minutes, Requests
Reply-To: WSFA members <WSFAlist at WSFA.org>

Jim Kling <jkling at nasw.org> wrote:

> It would be far simpler if you just chose which postings you want to
> reprint and then contact the authors privately.

Yes, except that it had *always* been the policy of this list that:

  It will be up to our secretary which messages to print in the WSFA
  Journal.  If you don't want a particular message printed in the WSFA
  Journal, please say so in the message.

as had been announced in the very first message, and in over two dozen
messages since then, and at more than one WSFA meeting, and in the
WSFA Journal.  It was only out of a surfeit of caution and courtesy
that I asked it once more.

I am frankly dismayed that several people who have said I do not have
their permission.  Not becuase they have denied me permission, but
because they had never said so before.  Why not?  And what other
misunderstandings might still be lurking?

At this point I will of course ask permission for reprinting
individual messages, except from those few who have explicitly given
me blanket permission.  (Thank you!)  I didn't want to go that route
since it would mean repeatedly asking a person for persmission if I
wanted to reprint several articles of theirs on different occasions,
and since they might not get around to replying between the time I
ask for permission and the deadline for the upcoming WSFA Journal.

Especially if I attempted to give some flavor in the Journal of a
*current* discussion thread, by excerpting several consecutive
messages that had appeared immediately before the Journal went
to print.

N Lynch <sfbookfan at yahoo.com> wrote:

> It seems to me that the announcements on the WSFAlist are very short
> time wise and why read about them a month later?

It makes sense that someone wouldn't want to repeatedly re-read
the same text.  And hence might miss any subtle changes.  But this
wasn't a subtle change.  It was in the montly message from the very
beginning.  And if someone had forgotten what the monthly message
said, then why wouldn't they re-read it?

Actually, I was wondering if I was the only one who had this aversion
to re-reading the same text.  For one thing, many posters to this list
quote every single line of the message they're replying to, as if they
thought we'd all like to see it again just hours after we saw it the
first time.

For another, the Red Cross asks you to read some text about the same
size as my montly message every time you donate blood.  Their text
is mostly unchanged, but sometimes has subtle but important changes,
which are *not* emphasized, but are hidden amongst the unchanged text.
(For instance that people who had recently been to Toronto couldn't
donate for a few weeks.)

> Is the Journal that needy for material?

Actually, yes.  At the moment all I have other than text I wrote
myself is two short reviews from Colleen.  If Sam's extra large June
issue left any backlog of submissions to the Journal, he hasn't made
them available to me.

Since Wade will be helping (since he has a printer, a scanner, and a
graphical browser), and I only get together with him on weekends, I
hope to go to print this coming Sunday.

I hope everyone likes to read my writings, since it's looking like the
July issue will be mostly written by me.