Gresham's Law [was Re: Harmon Seaver: Why?]

["..." adpf@xxxxxxxx]

"It has occurred to me that on this list, or any other list for that
matter, a `Gresham's Law' applies: bad posts drive out good posts. I am
sure that there are many subscribers to this list who perhaps wanted to
post something that others may well have found of value, but refrained
thinking it would only provoke more blather. We shall never no how many
other Annie Fishers and Robert Holmgrens lurking out there have decided
against posting here for fear of provoking more useless and narcissistic
palaver from the anti-Gatesians who dwell herein."

You are too kind to me, Leslie, and that's not false modesty. Substitute
Carl's and Tim's names for mine.

I'll agree totally with your Gresham's Law observation. It's happened in
comp.publish.prepress too, where persistent braindead queries relating to
one implementation of the language have driven nearly all programmers out
of the newsgroup intended for discussion of the language. Virtually every
topic introduced on this purported xyWrite list get twisted into an
excuse to discuss a generally unpopular OS, with a parenthetical nod to xyW
under that OS. When the central discussion turns momentarily to--gasp--
xyWrite, as has been the case for the past day or so, the tension seems
to be too much for subscribers who post on nothing but their OS and one
of them quickly steers conversation back to that OS. Hyping software that
profits the megacorp that came thisclose to murdering xyWrite to a list
dedicated to discussion of xyWrite strikes me as a shameless insult. 	--a

============================= adpFisher  nyc