Ignorance in MMD Articles
By Robbie Rhodes
Dear Philippe,
I certainly hope that we are not guilty of prejudice, and I am sure that we are ignorant -- there is much, much we must learn.
You write ("Re New street organs"):
> ... these digests give invaluable information on mechanical music
> (Thank you so much, Jody). That is not a reason to publish
> sometimes very false or very incomplete things.
Ah, Philippe, mon bon ami !
The "editorial staff" of this Digest (i.e., Jody, and occasionally me!) are very ignorant! We depend upon the e-mail contributions from our subscribers for our _own_ knowledge. The Digest is far different in comparison with a prestigious professional journal, which has a "Technical Advisory Board" of experts to help the editor (and which consumes several months of time in reviewing the submissions before they are published).
Our forum -- the Mechanical Music Digest -- is dedicated to sharing information and knowledge. The validity, accuracy and relevance of the articles in MMD is mostly determined by the subscribers.
If prejudice is exposed while sharing information, then even _more_ effort is needed to dispel the prejudice. If opinions collide, then even more communication of basic truths is needed.
Is it not better to publish something in error, than to not publish anything?
Forgive our sins of Ignorance, all you Authors and Readers, and Enlighten us!
-- Robbie Rhodes
[ Editor's Note:
[
[ Its an overwhelming task to try to send back messages to
[ everyone who asks a redundant question or provides an
[ (obviously) incomplete answer. The value of the list
[ is the dialog. Now that there are so many back issues,
[ three things come to mind. One is to more strongly
[ encourage new subscribers to read through the back
[ issues. Two is to provide some tools for searching
[ the back issues for specific topics (the index in
[ on Web page helps, but its not good enough yet). Three
[ is to collect up the frequently asked questions and
[ their answers and put them in a formal "FAQ" and see
[ that every new subscriber gets it first.
[
[ I still learn things every time a topic is "re-discussed".
[ I depend on the subscribers to help fill in incomplete or
[ incorrect answers. In the case of opinions, my job
[ sometimes becomes difficult...
[
[ Jody
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(Message sent Fri 15 Nov 1996, 04:02:46 GMT, from time zone GMT-0800.) |
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