birding-aus

resource for overseas and beginning birders

To: "'Peter Shute'" <>
Subject: resource for overseas and beginning birders
From: "Paul Dodd" <>
Date: Wed, 1 Aug 2007 15:36:25 +1000
Hi Peter,

You're right in that the list is one possible resource (and you're also
right that most people when replying to an RFI seem to reply off-list). I
suspect that part of the reason is that people ask at different times of
year - also if someone was to ask for information on the Mildura area now, I
would reply to them with slightly different information than was given to me
- for instance I would suggest the Mournpall Track in Hattah-Kulkyne NP
rather than the Nowingi Track. Hence there's a dynamic component to posting
requests and information to the list which wouldn't be present in the
archives.

I think that the design of any mailing list is more for current information
or for participating in conversations more than for archival of knowledge,
but to be sure there's an element of that too (otherwise why do we keep
archives of the mailing list?)

Paul


-----Original Message-----
From: Peter Shute  
Sent: Wednesday, 1 August 2007 9:01 AM
To: Paul Dodd; Greg
Cc: Birding-aus
Subject: resource for overseas and beginning birders

Many people do this (ask the list for site info), so you'd think that by now
all one has to do is search the birding-aus archives to get the information,
rather than asking again.  But it seems that many people send their replies
directly rather than via the list, meaning there are a lot of requests in
the archives with few or no answers.

Try searching for "RFI Bright" for an example (although perhaps there really
were no answers).

There must have been a wealth of site information passed around like this,
that has gone no further than the original recipient.  Maybe some people
don't want their favourite sites to become general knowledge, maybe they
just forget to reply to the list, or maybe they feel no one else is
interested.  I don't know why it happens, but if it happened less, then the
archives would be a better resource.

Peter Shute

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