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| Photo by Bill Adler |
by Peggy Robin
On Saturday evening (July 22, 2017, 10:35 PM EDT) the
Cleveland Park Listserv sent out Digest #10,000. That’s a nice round number and
it’s not randomly assigned; it’s the actual count of the number of digests sent
out since the dawn of the Listserv on November 30, 1999. About 40 percent of
listserv subscribers receive their listserv messages in “Daily Digest” format* (the last 15 messages batched together in one long email from Yahoogroups),
while another 40 percent get their messages delivered one at a time, and the
remaining 20 percent opt for no email from the group but may go to the website
at https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/cleveland-park/info
and log in with a Yahoo ID if and when they want to read messages from the
group.
Since we hit that milestone number, I thought it’s a good
time to stop and look over what’s in this particular digest, and see what that tells
us about who we are and what we do in this little corner of cyberspace. There
were ten messages in this digest, not the usual fifteen. (Shorter digests
sometimes come out at the end of the day. No one quite understands all the
elements of the algorithm employed by Yahoogroups to compile a digest – or at
least, I don’t, and I am supposedly the one most in touch with how it works!)
Let’s go over the messages one by one:
1. For Sale: Chinese Currency. This is a well-traveled
group, and the poster who has returned from a trip to China with some leftover
yuan is probably correct that this group will contain someone else currently
planning a trip to China who will be happy to pick up some yuan at a good rate
and without any tacked-on fees.
2. Re: ISO Oriental Carpet Cleaning and StorageRecommendations. A previous poster had requested recommendations for cleaning
and storage of oriental rugs, and this was yet another reply by a knowledgeable
consumer willing to share experience on the topic.
3. “Real Estate Insider: The Power of Pinpoint Pricing inToday’s Market.” This is the weekly newsletter from Cleveland Park Listserv
Sponsor Marjorie Dick Stuart, one of our mainstays of support, helping to keep
the listserv in business while dispensing free info on trends in the local real
estate market.
4. Re: Please keep your cat inside! This message is part of
the current discussion thread on whether all cats need to be kept indoors to
protect wildlife. The poster reports her experience that even a seemingly timid
housecat can be a successful predator if given the chance.
5. Re: Please keep your cat inside! The next message takes
the opposite side of the argument about cats and predation, citing evidence
that feral cats, not housecats, do the bulk of the killing of birds and small
mammals. She also quotes statistics about bird death due to crashes into
windows, contact with electric wire, and pesticides.
6. Free: Shelves. I am assuming the offer to give away the
shelves brought in multiple would-be takers.
7. ISO Where to Donate Gently Used Mens Clothing. The poster
was asking for the name of an organization that could make good use of his
donated clothing. He was especially interested in giving to someplace that
would help veterans.
8. Electric lawnmower for sale. The poster was asking $80
for a rarely used electric mower with a lot of great features that retails for
$334. If I didn’t already have an electric mower, I would have jumped at it
myself!
9. FREE Barbie KidKraft House. This has got to be the best
message of the batch. Some lucky kid is going to wind up with a completely free
Barbie dollhouse that from the attached photo looks amazing, comes fully
furnished, and includes a Barbie car in hot pink! I’m just sorry my kids are
too grown-up to take it.
10. Re: ISO feedback on RCN Internet + Digital TV. This
message provides feedback to a previous poster contemplating a switch to an RCN
bundle of internet+TV. The poster recommends it and throws in some info about
the benefits to the TIVO system that’s part of the RCN TV package.
So there you have it: Advice sought and given on a variety
of subjects; some thoughtful and
well-researched commentary on the indoor/outdoor cats controversy; a couple of
terrific giveaways; and a couple of very useful things for sale at a good
price. Number 10,000 turns out to be quite a nice snapshot of the CP Listserv
at the moment – and you know how hard it is to take a snapshot of a very large
group and have everyone come out looking good!
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Still Life with Robin is published on the Cleveland Park Listserv and on All Life Is Local on Saturdays or Sundays.
* If you are currently a Listserv subscriber in individual message delivery mode and would like to receive the "daily digest," just send a blank email (no subject line, no message) from your subscribed email address to the automated digest subscription address, cleveland-park-digest@yahoogroups.com. If you don't like it, you can always switch back to one-at-a-time messages by sending a blank email to cleveland-park-normal@yahoogroups.com.
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