Oh the noise

[Richard L. Goerwitz III]

I've been reading this list for a couple of weeks now.  Is it just me,
or is there a significant amount of noise here that's not directly re-
lated to the subject of the list?  (Ads, notices of junk software that
really belongs on general Web discussion lists; "lookie here" stuff that
doesn't really belong anywhere; etc.)

Could an old hand here give me an honest assessment of this group's
direction and overall signal-to-noise ratio?

Yes, I recognize the danger of starting a meta-discussion, so let me
invite people to reply via direct e-mail.  I will provide a summary
of replies upon request.

Richard Goerwitz
Brown University