Hi all,
There's been some discussion lately on the list and in back channels about the balance between volume of email traffic vs. inclusiveness and openness.
I've passed the question on to the executive to see if there is some nice answer to the issue. But since it is an important one and of immediate interest to members, I hope you'll forgive me proposing an interim suggestion: that we concentrate on providing tools to those who find the traffic heavier than they wish, rather than cut back on relevant traffic.
I've just added a footer to the list (it should be at the bottom of this email) that explains how to set your subscription to "DIGEST" mode. When you subscribe in digest mode, you receive a single email each day with all the postings from the list for the last 24 hours. It is harder to read (I find), but it solves the traffic problem in one step.
Most people are subscribed in NON-DIGEST mode, this means that you receive each email as it is posted. This is much easier to read and respond to, but it can involve a lot of traffic.
We can also help each other out by including clear subject lines, deleting excess text in replies, and, if we know how to do so, setting filters in our email clients to group emails (I do this with all my email, for example).
Since a major goal of globaloutlookDH is to break down communication barriers that have until now prevented people from different regions working together and learning from each other, I think personally that it is important that we err on the side of letting people now about initiatives and activities rather than on that of reducing traffic at the expense of hiding initiatives. Of course all should be respectful of each other's attention: given that we currently do have a relatively high rate of traffic, we might show this respect by continuing to avoid publishing completely tangential emails (something I've not seen yet).
But above all, especially in the beginning, we need patience as we develop a sense of ourselves and the list.
Thanks for a really invigorating couple of weeks!
-dan