Homestead mailing list

[Clansgian AT wmconnect.com]

> >I have gotten lots of info from people on this list, a lot of which is 
> totally useless to me in my situation. What I can use, I retain. 

Ray, many lists, and especially many homestead lists are tightly regulated as 
to content.  This one has never been under the assuption that over time 
things work themselves out and the effort of keeping people on topic of 
chicken 
feed and germination rates would not be worth the while.

Some have observed that this list tends to be not so much a list about 
homesteading per se, but rather a list OF homesteaders where one would expect 
to 
find the unique point of view from the homestead.  And believe me when one 
leaves 
the maninstream consumer/debt paradigm behind, one does see things 
differently.

The solution that I highly endorse to all  list problems or even just parts 
of a list one does not find useful is the <delete> key.  I don't read throuh 
half the posts on this list of late, there have been too many of them.  If  a 
thread goes off somewhere I can neither contribute nor benefit, I just file 
13 
it and go on.   

But in keeping at least loosely with the theme of 'homestead' in hte list's 
title, I rather expect posts to be one of two things  1) directly related to 
a 
homestead topic or 2) any topic expressed from a homestead point of view.  
This excludes no one and no topic.

Some years ago, some number of years ago, I was active in the local chess 
club in town.  The city allowed us to use one of the rooms in the community 
center (the old black highschool building) provided that we'd agree to hold 
classes.  So we added ourselves to the roster.  There came a good number of 
people of 
all ages who really wanted to learn chess.  There were eager young people who 
wanted access to our libraries and the opportunity to spar against the 
seasoned, there were grandparents who wanted to learn something of what their 
grandchild was interested in ... etc.

But each class also had someone who showed up because he or she was just 
lonely.  They had no interest in learning chess, they just had no place else 
to 
go.  They were given a piece of cake and a glass of tea and asked to sit 
around 
the table with everyone else.  Why not?

But every other class cycle or so, someone would show up because they had 
nothing better to do, because they just wanted somewhere to go, and they made 
a 
complete ass out of themselves.  As the instructor tried to explain the 
rudaments of chess and the hanger-on would loudly add "Don't know nothing 
about that 
but if you put some checkers on there I could jump you right there , har, 
har!"

One lonely old lady showed up for one class, then showed up for the next and 
the next and the next talking loudly all the time about how much she didn't 
know about it and she had a bedknob back home that looked like one of the 
pieces 
and ... etc.

There was no correct or acceptable way to exclude this person from the 
classes and so they became impossible to hold.  We finally had to find new 
digs as 
we could not fulfill our agreement to hold classes.

I am not suggesting that can happen on an email list.  An email list is not a 
finite resource as a classroom is.  People could post baseball scores, the 
local gossip, and lists of their favorite purple things and the <delete> key 
works just as well on them all.

I think that a list with not only the title but a long history of dealing 
with homesteading and homesteaders could be expected to critique and dissect 
all 
the flotsam and jetsam that passes over it as pertinent to homesteading or 
foolishness as is participants see fit.


James