Frank; I'd like you to meet Gary Hradek, who is in the process of putting
together a CD including just such information.  His is a noble venture, and
to do it properly, he could certainly use a hand.

From my experience with the list stickers, I am fairly certain that he has
no concept of what he's getting into;  his is a wonderful idea, and I don't
want to see him getting stoned to death, ala Ken Wyatt with the stickers.

You have my solemn pledge that I will do what I can to help with this
project, if indeed my help is wanted.

Karl Wolz

----- Original Message -----
From: "Frank Grunthaner" <FrankGRUN@AOL.COM>
To: <vanagon@GERRY.VANAGON.COM>
Sent: Tuesday, May 28, 2002 1:43 PM
Subject: Re: IS THE LIST GETTING SMALLER? with proposal!

> In a message dated 5/28/02 11:20:17 AM, dbeierl@ATTGLOBAL.NET writes:
>
> << William, what you seem to be missing is that the people who leave are
the
> ones with expertise and experience, who have given many hours of effort to
> assist others.  It is hardly censorship to remove oneself from an
> environment that has become unpleasant, and many people find blatant
> rudeness, hair-trigger squabbling, and endless pushing of
> politicosexualsociological philosophies quite unpleasant.  I count myself
> among them.  There is another group who may leave -- that is new members
> who have entered in the midst of a bout of incivility and have not had a
> chance yet to discover the value of the list.  I seem to remember a
certain
> feller from California who a) left in a huff after being subscribed for
> roughly one day, and b) has proceeded since then to irritate a
considerable
> fraction of the list membership in various ways including pushing various
> personal and political agendas unrelated to Vanagons.  He has in general
> been treated with considerable forbearance, and I must say that IMHO he's
> gotten a lot easier to live with in the last couple months as he absorbs
> some of the spirit of the list -- but he'd have done much better to be a
> lot quieter in the beginning.  Please forgive my not mincing words in this
> situation.
>
>
> >Furthermore, to attempt to lay a guilt trip is outright latent (and
blatant)
> >manipulation. How childish. Really!!
>
> I beg to differ.  People have, I suppose, every right to be rude, although
> it certainly says a lot about them personally -- OTOH other people have an
> equal right to expect an atmosphere of  civility and to vote with their
> feet when it is missing.  If the people who leave are ?coincidentally?
> those who have the greatest experience and expertise, then I submit that
> the list is the poorer for it.
>
> On that basis I suggest that it pays to keep the old-timers happy, and
that
> in the absence of self-control amongst list members it might indeed be
> worthwhile to have a little more active participation by some form of
> moderator (not necessarily the list-owner) who has/have the power to say
> "This thread is ended, take it private" and make it stick.
>
> >I hope the list IS getting smaller. I also hope those that want to leave
> >just do it and don't waste list band width telling us you are going to or
> >why you did it.
>
> Does this include everyone?  If Tom Carrington decides to leave the list
> would you want to know why?  And would you be prepared to take over the
> ownership of the list, house the machinery, provide the Internet
connection
> for it and so on as he does?  You already know if you've read his postings
> that he's disappointed in the lack of self-control evidenced by various
> recent flareups.  If Dennis Haynes or Harold Nancy or Mark Drillock or Bob
> Donalds or Brent Christensen or Ken Wilford or Ron Salmon or Frank
> Condelli  or Joel Walker (to name just a few) leave would you like to know
> why?  I'll even venture an opinion that I myself give more to the list
than
> I take from it -- if I get to the end of my tolerance would you care to
> know what made this place not worth the effort to me?
>
> regds,
> david
>  >>
>
> David,
>
> Well said. In my view, having been involved since nearly the inception of
the
> list, I do feel that the technical, recreational and societal content of
the
> list has declined markedly in the last few years. This is certainly
> abandonment by experienced and well informed former members.
>
> Part of this is due to the generation of focused sub-lists and part is due
to
> the extended response to flames, off topic forays and politically correct
> demands. Often, speaking for myself only, I delete whole days of
> transmissions in a unit time.
>
> One of the key separations between democracy and anarchy is personal
> discipline. Participate, but offer postings with a view to contributing,
or
> probing for information after searching the archives and FAQs. Tom's role
as
> moderator should not have to be punitive. Police yourself least we drive
> another moderator into the drink. Share content, as opposed to innuendo
and
> structured belief system pontification.
>
> (The proposition) BTW, with the increasing number of newbies, and the size
of
> the archives, the FAQs for the group should be enhanced. Such an
undertaking
> is beyond the time resources of probably all list members. However,
> individual specific topics, taken on by a volunteer newbie might be
feasible.
> Said newbie would take on as a project, scanning the archives on, for
> example, the topic of cooling system bleeding. After pulling the material,
> said newbie could digest the material and piece together a summary of the
key
> features with references to the archives for more detail. The group could
> comment at length, after which said document owner could develop his final
> piece on the matter and forward it to Vanagon.com for incorporation as a
FAQ
> on the matter. The result could be newbie rapidly converted to expert on
his
> topic and a wealth of info for all.
>
> My ill-considered thoughts,
>
> Frank Grunthaner
>