Re: [unrev-II] Listening to Doug, Proposal

From: Grant Bowman (grant@suse.com)
Date: Sun Nov 26 2000 - 20:29:18 PST

  • Next message: Eugene Eric Kim: "Re: [unrev-II] Listening to Doug, Proposal"

    Eugene,

    Your message below is message archived at
    http://www.egroups.com/message/unrev-II/2089. Wouldn't it be nice if
    the number 2089 was included in a header or footer of the email?
    Conceptually from my N-squared diagram getting that piece of information
    caused a few extra steps, and may help us if we want to use something
    similar here.

    Regards,

    --
    -- Grant Bowman                                   grant@suse.com
    -- SuSE                                    +1-510-628-3380 x5027
    -- 580 Second Street, Suite 210              fax +1-510-628-3381
    -- Oakland, CA  94607                        http://www.suse.com
    

    * Eugene Kim <eekim@eekim.com> [001126 16:01]: > The essence of Rod's proposal is great: Let's learn about KM by doing KM, > starting with the tools we currently have available. I'd be very > interested to see the reported results of a team doing KM using SDS. > > Here's my proposal: How about studying and doing KM using the tools > already at our disposal, specifically this mailing list? > > We already have one component of a DKR: the automatic archiving of this > list into a rudimentary, hierarchical structure. The question now is, > are there human methods that we can practice to further improve the > building and maintenance of this DKR? > > I'll propose several, in no particular order. The first is a simple > one: format your messages intelligently and readably. Poor mail clients > seem to be the biggest culprit here, but a little human awareness goes a > long way in fixing this problem. In my opinion, e-mail should be > formatted for at most 70 character lines with hard-returns at the end of > each line. MIME messages should be avoided for standard, 7-bit ASCII > messages. This provides maximum readability for the majority of mail > clients, and also makes it easier to write translation tools that > automatically infer structure from unstructured text messages. > > Second, someone should do a periodic summary of this mailing list, with > links to the appropriate threads and messages. As I mentioned earlier, > this is already practiced to good effect by several open source > development communities. > > (As a brief aside, I'd like to dispute Rod's earlier comment that > engineers don't seem to be anxious to practice KM. On the contrary, I > think that engineers are among the best practitioners of KM, and that many > of the more interesting innovations in KM have sprung specifically from > the open source community.) > > Third, link to messages rather than quote them. This is one that Doug is > constantly promoting, and one that is nontrivial to do with the tools we > have at our disposal. It's one of those areas that immediately arises as > a necessary tool feature. Not surprisingly, the only two people who seem > to practice this -- Doug and Rod -- are people who have tools that support > this feature by providing granular addressability and some linking > capability. > > Fourth, change the subject lines of e-mail to reflect the content of the > message, not the title of the thread. Lack of foresight has rendered the > subject header irrelevant. Most subject lines tell me nothing except the > subject of the first message in the thread and the fact that a message is > part of a thread. This latter feature is mostly unnecessary today, as > decent mail clients will use the In-Reply-To header. > > Fifth, develop a charter for this mailing list. This is tremendously > challenging, especially for a list that has traditionally been broad in > scope, but I think it is vital for bringing focus to a forum. > > Sixth, highlight significant points in messages by resending them > (preferably with a link to the original message) in new messages. Eric > has already been practicing this, where he will take a particularly > interesting paragraph in a long message, and resend it with a different > subject and some brief commentary. > > These are just a few suggestions off the top of my head. I would > definitely like to see those interested in practicing good KM attempt to > incorporate some of these suggestions. I'd also love to see comments on > the above as well as new suggestions for practicing KM using existing > tools. > > -Eugene > > -- > +=== Eugene Eric Kim ===== eekim@eekim.com ===== http://www.eekim.com/ ===+ > | "Writer's block is a fancy term made up by whiners so they | > +===== can have an excuse to drink alcohol." --Steve Martin ===========+ > > > > > > Community email addresses: > Post message: unrev-II@onelist.com > Subscribe: unrev-II-subscribe@onelist.com > Unsubscribe: unrev-II-unsubscribe@onelist.com > List owner: unrev-II-owner@onelist.com > > Shortcut URL to this page: > http://www.onelist.com/community/unrev-II

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