Daniel Liston - tasting one two three

["Kenneth R. Brahmer" <kbrahmer @ smnet . net>]

Daniel Liston wrote,
in response to a one line test message to the list
by new members Ann & Mike :
------------------quote-----------------------------------------------------
--
This kind of test is about as rude as walking
 into the announcers booth at a football or soccer game,
grabbing the microphone and saying "I'm new here, I only
wanted to make sure this microphone is working.  Please
forgive me for the announcement.
-------------------------end of
quote-----------------------------------------------
To Ann & Mike and any other new members let me say that Daniel Liston is the
most knowledgeable and helpful majordomo guru you could ever meet. This list
would be immeasurably damaged without his active participation. But Daniel
is human and can err ( e.g. albeit not about majordomo). His reply, as a
curt rebuke, is unlike his normally helpful and kind efforts on this list.
Forgive him for a moment of testiness.

To Daniel I say. You are to be commended for all your technically superior
and charitable efforts. As much as it irritates the "super competent," new
people must learn and often by mistake. Your frustration is understood.
However!
(1): This is a list which caters to message senders attempting to establish
or maintain a communication system...not a football game with listeners
whose interest is only the game. I can assure you that some of what I hear,
from announcers in the booth, is much more distracting and irritable.
(2): There is no one microphone to grab - unless you consider this forum to
be your personal mouthpiece. Everyone here has a microphone and everyone is
exposed to what everyone else says. Although a message that is intended to
insure their microphone works might seem sophomoric, it was one line that
concisely and apologetically related the facts and could be easily tuned
out. If not by sending a message, how does one know if their microphone is
working?
(3): Your message only needed to be sent to Ann & Mike to make its point AND
serve to advise them their microphone was working. As a guru your rebuke
could have been made privately.
(4): I'm sending this to the list because I wish to reach the entire
audience to ensure new members don't get discouraged; to remind us all how
easily uninitiated people can stumble yet deserve our patience; and to
assure any new members that YOU Daniel Liston are worth listening to even if
you get testy at times.

Whistle blows...flag flies...Daniel gets penalized 5 yards for being off
side...and the clock starts with the next message. The down is played over.

In My Not So Humble Opinion (IMNSHO) <grin>
But then I could be wrong.
Ken