I subscribed to this Vanagon List exclusively to read messages about
Vanagons or about topics that show the how Vanagons relate to other
things.  For instance, a note describing how a local ordinance is
impacting a Westy Vanagon owner's right to park his/her vehicle in
their driveway because a municipality classified it as a motorhome,
would still seem to be on-topic to me.  I suspect some other
subscribers had similarly narrow expectations about note content when
they subscribed.

But I've been thinking about unsubscribing.  My reason is not because
I don't receive notes about Vanagons and their context.  I do.  And I
love reading many of them.  But the time it takes me to stay current
with this list is increased by lots of non Vanagon posts.  I don't
even want to name specific topics, partly because some people who
write off-topic notes also write Vanagon notes that I enjoy.  I don't
want to offend anyone.  But when you're tempted to just socialize by
writing a note to the Vanagon list which isn't really about Vanagons,
please reconsider.  Please find another way to simply be social.

But if you can't resist, then perhaps List members could agree to
uniformly include some compact standardized code at the beginning of
their Subject line to alert other List subscribers if any note is "OFF
TOPIC."   Hum, OFF TOPIC is just 9 characters long, including the
space.  That's not very long.  If it's all in capital letters, it
calls attention to itself well.  And the meaning of OFF TOPIC is
intuitively obvious, unlike many acronyms, including OT.  But OT would
be a lot better than no warning at all.  Would adopting something like
that be too much to ask?  In my case, I'd usually just delete all
those notes without reading them, which wouldn't take long.  Others
would usually read them, but the OFF TOPIC alert would always allow
each List subscriber to make an informed choice about how they were
about to spend their time.

Does this suggestion resonate with you?  If it does, this is not the
time to be silent.  If you don't want to add discussion to this
suggestion, but do agree, please post to the Vanagon List a note
saying "I agree" to this subject line WITHOUT REPRINTING THIS ENTIRE
NOTE.   Please state which would you prefer, OFF TOPIC or OT?  Or if
someone has a better suggestion, let's go with that.  Those who
disagree might explain why.

John