Dear List Members,
Two days into our second month of the DC lockdown order, and
the Cleveland Park Listserv continues to run at about double its usual (pre-Covid-lockdown)
message load.
I’m very gratified by the good use people are making of this
neighbor-to-neighbor communications medium. We’re busy helping to get masks to
health care workers, pointing people to ways to find hard-to-locate household
goods, posting about opportunities to volunteer or just perform a single favor
for someone in need….and that’s on top of all the usual stuff, such as finding
a nanny, giving away some extra printer ink, recommending an emergency roofer
for someone whose house has sprung a leak….and so much more.
That’s the good news. But whenever you hear someone telling
you about the good news side of an equation, you’re always primed to think,
“OK, so what’s the bad news?”
And the answer is, with about double the number of messages
coming in each day, we’re getting a lot more….how shall I put this delicately?....don’t
think I’ll try: crap. So we really need to be more careful than ever not to overload
people’s inboxes with unnecessary messages. On such a large and busy listserv, we’ve always had a number of screening techniques in place to help us cut
down on repetition and unhelpful hints (see our listserv’s Rules page for all the
fine print) – but these days, especially, we need to keep the listserv from
becoming bogged down, so that the more important messages are not lost in a rolling
tide of message clutter.
With that goal in mind, I thought I’d use my column space
today to lay down a top-ten list of what NOT to send to the Cleveland Park
Listserv. Call it a UN-Wish-List. Here it is, in Letterman-Show backwards-countdown format, from number ten up to the number one most un-wished-for message:
#10: Thank you notes. It’s always nice to show
appreciation for a helpful post – but it’s nicer for all not to have to wade
through every thoughtful thank-you that every grateful list member has ever been motivated to
send. So please, DO thank the original poster personally, and privately. You
can send your thank-you note to the whole list only if your note goes on to offer
some new piece of information that adds to the discussion. Otherwise, “reply
to original poster” is the way to go. You can read about how to find the right
reply option on our handy FAQ page.
#9: “I agree” messages. Same rule above applies to an “I agree” message. We’ll post it to all if you have some new and informative comment to add; otherwise, please tell just the previous poster that their
words resonated with you.
#8: Easy answers. Never ask a question that
can be answered with a fast Google search or a simple phone call. People have been sending
in questions like: “Is the Grosvenor Metro Station closed?” The WMATA website https://www.wmata.com/ has a service alert
icon (it’s the exclamation point in a circle) right on its front page. Click on that and there's your answer. Want to find out if your home is in the delivery zone of your favorite restaurant? Why ask the listserv when the restaurant has a website? Or better still, a delivery app. Or a telephone number -- just call them and ask them! They
will be happy to hear from you, believe me. Don’t believe me? Well, there’s no
disputing this: Your query is not going to be answered on the listserv!
#7 Half-answer & "maybe" posts. If you’re taking
the time to help someone else out with an answer to a query, please take a
little extra time to verify your information. A half-answer, a “maybe” or an “I
don’t know” response is usually more trouble than it’s worth. Take, for
example, the thread a few weeks ago about where to find thermometers in stock. I
don’t know how many times I had to deal with the non-helpful “Saw them at CVS” response. What good is that if you don't say which one or when you last saw
them on the shelves? Do you know how many CVSes are in area? I don’t either,
but it’s waaaay too many for me to guess which one you meant. And if
you saw the thermometers a week ago, they’re probably not there now. If you’re
going to recommend a place to buy something, at a minimum you need to give the location and a phone number. If you really want to be helpful, you could even
call the store and make sure they’ve still got the requested item. If you’re
not up to doing that, and think the original query writer should make the call,
then please respond off-list with your suggestion. Another type of “half answer”
is the one that assumes everyone knows about a particular place or institution.
Let’s say there’s a plant sale to benefit a public school. You can’t just say, “It’s
on at Murch next week” and expect all listserv readers to know what you mean.
There are plenty of non-parents in the neighborhood who don’t know the names
and locations of our local public schools – but they still might want to buy
some plants at the sale. So tell them what the place is, where it is,
when it’s happening, and give ‘em a number to call or a website to visit if
they have questions. Oh, and while we’re at it, please check to be sure that
the day of the week matches the calendar date. I do try to catch those slip-ups
(they are so common – and we all make them sometimes!) but I’ve been known to
miss a few in my day. It helps a lot if you do your own fact-checking.
#6: Public announcements. We are subscribed to all
the major city announcement lines (DDOT, DPW, Mayor’s Office, CM Cheh’s Office,
Metro/WMATA, MPD, and more) and we will post all their messages that concern
this part of the city. For example, we will send out a DDOT notice that Connecticut
Ave will be closed from Calvert to Cathedral between X and Y date – but
not a notice that the ramp to the 295 Expressway will be closed for the same time. So,
as a general rule, if you get a city alert, you do NOT need to forward it to
the listserv. That said, we don’t always see every alert that affects our area
soon enough to warn people to avoid a trouble spot. So, if you’ve been out for
a spin along Reno Road and got as far as Yuma before you ran into a water main
break, and it looks like the road will be closed for the rest of the day, it's fine to send that report to the Listserv. If we haven’t already posted the DC
Water alert, we’ll post your message and add an editor’s note with
the official announcement about the road closing and repair work. We just don’t
want everyone routinely forwarding the bulletins they receive. TMI!
#5 A link to a news article – and the rest of the message
box is blank. The first thing to say is that an awful lot of malware and
spam looks just like that – an email from someone without any kind of note of
explanation. Just a link. It’s a very basic rule of internet safety that you
should NEVER, EVER click on a link in an email when you don’t know who the
sender is or why they want you to go there. If you ever get anything like
that, just delete it,
unopened. That’s exactly what we do with all these types of messages.
We will never let one go through to the readers. That doesn’t mean you can’t
post a message that references an article you’ve read on a subject of interest
to the listserv. You just need to write your own message to say why you think the article is relevant to something of concern to listserv readers. In fact, you SHOULD cite a news source as backup to a
position you’re taking or an argument you're advancing. One more thing: the topic
does need to be related in some specific way to life in this neck o’ the woods.
That means, whatever your opinion of the move of Harry & Meghan to LA, and
however many news articles you can cite to back up your opinion, we’re still not
going to post it on the Cleveland Park Listserv. Now, if the couple should
happen to emerge from the Woodley Park/Zoo metro and complain that they’re still
a half-mile from the entrance to the Zoo, and it’s a long uphill shlog, pushing
baby Archie in a pram – by all means, post that news to the Listserv. And you can give a link to a news article, too. Even better if it has photos.
#4 Asked & Answered. Please do your level best to keep
up with what’s already been posted, to cut down on messages answering a
question that’s already been answered,
Sometimes we’ll get ten or more answers to a question that can be
resolved in a single reply. Here’s a recent example: Someone wanted to know if
you could still pay your real estate tax bill by going in person to a Wells
Fargo Bank. The information found on the DC Office of Tax & Revenue website was confusing, even contradictory. We
did post a few different responses, because the first one lacked the
information on how the payment situation was going to change in the near future; subsequent posts
gave more detailed instructions on the payment options and deadlines. But
by the time we had received the tenth or twelfth or twentieth reply on the
thread, we were beginning to wonder, “Do these posters even read the
listserv? Haven’t they seen this question answered already? Of course, screening out
repetitive answers does get a bit trickier when the question under discussion
is not one with a yes or no answer but one with a lot of ifs and buts. Still,
we get posts that repeat points made by a previous poster. We even get posts
sent in by the same poster, reiterating the same point they made the day before. Maybe they think people didn’t get it the first time. I’ll take this opportunity
to remind everybody, READ what’s on the list before you send in your own
response. You don’t have to wait until you get your listserv email; you can go
straight to the Listserv’s website at any time to read what’s up: https://groups.io/g/clevelandpark/messages
#3 The “Not THIS again!” post. Any time a message
starts off with “I’m so sick of this discussion I could scream!” or some other
variation on that theme, I hit delete. I wish the poster would stop to
consider: If you’re so sick of reading about a subject, why on earth would
you think anyone else wants to read you saying so? Especially if you go on to
add two or three more paragraphs complaining about how stupid the other posters
are. Listen, if you think a subject is boring or has been done to death, there’s
a simple remedy: stop reading now. Skip right over it and go on to the next
thing. If you subscribe to the Listserv in digest mode, then your email comes with an
up-front, clickable table of contents. Just skim the subject lines and jump
directly to whatever’s of interest. Couldn’t be easier. As for that oft-discussed
topic – the reason it’s back again is that something new has come up, something’s
changed, and we (the moderators) think the discussion is covering new territory.
But you don’t have to agree!
#2 Scolding, nagging, chiding, or snarky notes. This
is the most subjective thing, and you can take my word for it that there’s always a
ton of off-list correspondence going on over where the lines should be drawn. I
would never claim we always get it right. We’ve let some messages slip through
that were too mean, while screening out others that were nowhere near as bad. Whatever
you think, don’t accuse us of censorship. This is not a public square. It’s a
privately run, privately owned, online daily publication. Think of it like a letters-to-the-editor column of a print newspaper. The publishers/list
owners get to decide what to run or decline to run in our space. It’s hard to create
cut-and-dried rules for what’s allowed or not allowed, but if I had to issue a
general rubric, it would go this way: You can criticize – harshly, if you like –
as long as you stick to the ideas expressed in a previous message, and stay
away from attacking the person who wrote them. That means no digs at the character, motives, or background of the poster. Most of all, do not make any assumptions about what that person
probably thinks but did not explicitly say in their message. Give the poster – and definitely the
moderators! – the benefit of the doubt, and please, don’t yell at either one of
us. You’re not going to change anyone’s mind that way. Well, you’re not going
to get the chance, because -- just like there’s no crying in baseball -- there’s no
yelling on the Cleveland Park Listserv.
And now the #1 thing never to send to the CP Listserv
under any circumstances: Forwards of random stuff you’ve seen on the net and
want to share. NO, NO, NO and more NO! I can’t tell you the number of
people who are on multiple lists or Facebook groups or subscribe to blogs or journals
where they will see something clever, or funny, or charming, or heartwarming,
or will read about an EXTREMELY URGENT situation, which they are moved to share
with this group. This may not be such a big deal on a group with a few hundred
members, or even one with a few thousand members, but on a listserv like this
one, with over 14,800 members, it’s no small thing but a major headache –
times some multiple of ten. So our rule for the mass-circulated thing you want
everyone to see is the simplest of all: Do NOT hit “forward.” If you do, we
will delete it. And 95 percent of our members will bless us for doing so. The other 5 percent – you know who you are! -- and you can heed these words, reform, and make the world – well, at least the world of the Cleveland Park Listserv -- a better place for us all.
One day – and may it be in the not-too-distant future -- we shall
all be able to talk to each other again, face to face, in the real world, and
we won’t be spending so much time typing on our keyboards or dictating to
voice-recognition apps that mangle every other word. When that day comes, the
message volume will slip back down to its pre-Covid level, and we’ll all be a lot calmer
and even-keeled. Well, I know I will be. Actually, I feel a lot calmer now,
having unloaded my top ten listserv pet peeves on you all tonight.
Thanks for listening!
- Peggy
Peggy Robin
Cleveland Park Listserv Co-Owner & Moderator
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