Re: Does Anyone Even Read This Stuff ? (was Re: The NSA)

["L. McCarthy" <lmccarth@ducie.cs.umass.edu>]

Adam Shostack writes:
> 	The other problem we face is that people like Matt write solid
> essays on various things, and no one responds.  People who write
> essays, post solid mathematical results, etc, bemoan this pretty
> regularly.

I agree that this is a problem, but perhaps not so much as we might think.
For one thing, communication sometimes develops in private. For instance, I
exchanged some mail with Matt about Caller ID after his Top 10 Problems list.
More importantly, it takes much more time, and in some cases expertise, to 
compose a good response to a long discourse than to reply to a short opinion
piece or news report. Relatively few people have the time and ability to
formulate a significant extension or rebuttal to a major work. This is
natural and inevitable. It's probably unrealistic to expect a much greater
frequency of such messages.

Black Unicorn writes:
# There is a internet lore that says the more valuable and insightful a 
# given article is, the less response it gets.
# I hope this is right, as most of mine tend to be ignored.

Lately, I've had the feeling that majordomo@toad echoes my epistles only back
to me. None of the longer pieces I've written has elicited so much as a flame 
from Eric, Perry, or even James in a while.

As they say, "opinions are like assholes", and it's easy to argue about them.
Netiquette strenously discourages people from simply agreeing. This can be
carried too far.

I've encountered an insidious hazard of high-volume lists (such as this) that
probably snares other people too. It's altogether too easy to sit at one's
mailer and merely react to whatever comes along. Obviously, if everyone did
this all the time, nothing of substance would ever be accomplished. It's
therapeutic, IMHO, to step back regularly, refocus on one's long term goals
w.r.t the group, and push new initiatives.

-L. Futplex McCarthy