On Sun, 4 Apr 2004, Jane Lyle wrote:
> I think I would be uncomfortable with the level of editing that you do,
> too, Douglas. How do you find the time, even? (And do you really think
> that all the time you spend on this makes a noticeable difference? Is it
> time well spent?)

Well, my digest subscribers think it is time well spent and *does* make a
difference to them (I've a couple of thousand digest subscribers, all
told).

The vast majority of my editing is directed toward making the digests
as easy to read as possible (have you ever looked at a typical LISTSERV
DIGEST (NOMIME NOHTML), where everyone quotes everything in every reply?).
A few yeas ago I did a survey of what the DIGEST subscribers wanted, and
they told me.  So, I started doing it.  I'm in the midst of a followup
survey now, and not a few subscribers say that if they couldn't get the
list in the digest form as I provide it they wouldn't subscribe.  That
list had about 3,000 subscribers when I did the first survey, has about
4,250 now, 35 - 65 postings per day.

I could edit the digests themselves, rather than the postings before
distribution, but that would mean that the MAIL and archive versions of
postings would differ from the DIGEST versions, and I don't want that.

Douglas Winship  [log in to unmask]