Re[2]: [at-l] Staying on Topic - LONG

[spiriteagle99@hotmail.com (Jim and/or Ginny Owen)]

Bob C. wrote:
>The  list  can  be  anything  it's  active participants want. What a
>majority of members  want is chit chat and advice on shuttles, gear, food
>and other everyday hiker concerns.

Yup. You were told that that was mostly true 18 months ago.  You were also
told that the subjects so dear to your heart were welcome in small doses,
but that the list membership wasn't interested in constant warfare about
them.  So why do you keep whining about what the list is not?  You have TA
as a platform - you have the constant warfare you were looking for - you
even have those few people who are interested.  So what are you bitching
about?

Oh - you say you want a bigger audience?  Fine - then go build one - the
same way we built at-l - one person at a time, one day at a time, one idea
at a time.  Go "sell" your ideas - and TA.  Learn something about
salesmanship, put some real effort into it - and then maybe some of us will
believe that your message is worth listening to.  If the messenger isn't
willing to put in any effort to build the audience and sell the message,
then the message isn't worth much effort or attention on the part of the
audience.


>They clearly are not into understanding trail origins and history,
>expanding the trail,  creating  trail  buffers  or  protecting  the  trail
>from harmful hiker practices.  I  don't criticize the list for its choices.
>I do criticize the list for  denying  the  obvious.  I will leave
>speculation about the reasons for the denial to others. My >particular
>specialty is facts.

Funny - fact's are my specialty too.  Only your facts don't match my facts.

If the list isn't into those things, then why do most of them belong to ATC?
  Why do so many of them volunteer so much time, effort and money to support
the Trail through organizations that actually do something useful in that
regard?  Why do so many of them spend so much time, energy and money
maintaining not only the AT, but other trails as well?  Why do so many of
them have AT books, videos and literature - and use them?  Why do so many of
them spend so much time talking about the Trail - and hiking it?

Let's face it, Bubba --- your problem here isn't what the list membership
does or doesn't do - it's the fact that they don't do it the way you want
them to. You ignored the thousands of words of explanation that were written
last year in a massive attempt to help you see what the list was about.  Was
it that you didn't believe them - or that you didn't understand them - or
that you just didn't care because you figured you could force the list to
become what you wanted it to be?  Does it matter?  You still keep on whining
about what the list doesn't know or do or want without seeming to understand
that, as a whole, the list knows, does and wants many, if not most, of those
things, but that they do them in their own time, their own ways - not yours.
  Is that their problem - or yours?

I think Stacy said it well in the latest ALDHA newsletter.  I don't remember
the exact words, but the sense of it was: "ALDHA works because, as a group,
we leave our politics at home and bring our hiking to the Gathering."

That same attitude is what's made this list work for the last 7 years.  Why
does that make you so unhappy?  Why do you think it needs to be changed?
Why do you think "YOUR" way would be so much better?  Especially when YOUR
way has been tried - and failed so miserably and spectacularly. Why do you
think it's so acceptable to force people to discuss what YOU want to discuss
- whether they want to or not?

If your specialty is facts, then you should try some "real" facts.

Walk softly,
Jim


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