[IAEP] mailing list usage & business jargon, was Re: Back on Task... The 2017 Sugar Labs Mission Statement

[D. Joe]

On Fri, Apr 28, 2017 at 04:52:05PM +0000, Caryl Bigenho wrote:

> Second... when you reply to an email, unless it is private SLOB business,
> please be sure you have included iaep in the addresses. 

I would say: Include IAEP if it's IAEP business (and yes, so long as its
IAEP business suitable for public consumption). We've seen a *lot* of
crossposting recently between IAEP and sugar-devel that probably wasn't
necessary, and raises the noise floor on both sides. It's always possible to
forward something later, it's effectively impossible to unsend something
(the growing pile of ineffective "recall" messages I've accumulated
over the years notwithstanding).

> Otherwise your messages look blank to everyone who isn't a SLOB member. 

I have no idea what this means. If you're not on the list of direct
recipients (via any of the To:, Cc:, or Bcc: headers), and you're not a
recipient via your subscriptions to one or more of the targetted mailing
lists, you should see nothing at all.

Seeing a "blank" message sounds like an error at some point in the mail
delivery or display functions and less a question of addressing.

You should either get the message, in full, or not at all.

> Please understand, goals are NOT the same as objectives. They are much more
> general. Objectives are designed to help achieve the goals and have a definite
> form... who will do what by when, how will it be done and how will success be
> measured. Goals do NOT have these elements!

I would be much less inclined to reject outright prescriptive pronouncements
like this if they were couched in some sort of context indicating in which
school or schools of thought these words ("objectives", "goals") have these
peculiar and limited meanings.

The words have commonly understood usage that stray far beyond the
strictures of the above assertions. I expect I'm not alone in my
inclination to apply common usage. 

If one wants to make a case for working within a particular framework, then
by all means do, but assuming the framework and making declarations from
within it short-circuits a lot of the opportunity to build a common
understanding.

It seems particularly incongruous within a constructionist organization to
make declarations like this.

-- 
D. Joe