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About use of the BD list
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Trevor Sather
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Oct 07, 2009 02:07 PDT
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Only 479 subscribers on the BD list I’m afraid Jon! We dream of the giddy heights of 900…
This is indeed a debate that has been had in the past, but there are several that surface periodically on this list (open v closed motions, methods of power pairing, etc.) – which is natural because by definition, the bulk of this community changes faces every few years. There are only a few of us hoary enough to have sat through them multiple times. But to fresh ears, they seem to be interesting. Everyone has to debate capital punishment for the first time too.
We did in fact have two BD lists back in the early 00s – one for general philosophical discussion and all things, and one just for details of upcoming tournaments so that people could opt for a ‘low-traffic’ version. No-one used the latter so we shut it down.
If any of you are concerned about too many e-mails flooding your Inbox, I’d suggest the following:
(a) Do look at the digest option that someone else reminded us of earlier, so you can flick through batches of e-mails at a time convenient to you
(b) If you use MS Outlook, you can set up a rule so that BD messages are automatically diverted to their own folder, away from your Inbox – I expect most e-mail clients have something similar.
(c) If you use webmail, you might want to set up a separate webmail account away from your work/personal messages, just for BD – I know several people do this.
(d) The extreme measure is of course to unsubscribe and follow the BD calendar for tournament details – or you can read the mailing list archive online whenever you wish.
(e) If there really is a problem with the way the list is used, I’d be happy to set up a survey to poll list members and get a sizeable body of opinion so we know if there’s a consensus on a problem.
On another point, a few people have reported problems in receiving or sending BD messages via Topica in recent months. In most cases I’ve been able to troubleshoot these successfully, but not all – however I do need specific detail of error messages, examples of e-mails sent but not distributed, etc to be able to look into it, rather than just telling me that the list isn’t working. If you have any trouble at all please do let me know. Again, if there’s a significant problem, we’d be happy to move the list somewhere else, but don’t want to do it unless there really is a problem.
In both cases, generally I think Topica has served the BD community pretty well for a number of years both technically and philosophically, but that’s no reason why we shouldn’t keep reviewing it. Please do send any feedback either to me or to the list as you see fit.
Best
Trevor
BD mailing list admin
From: jon.-@eu.nabgroup.com [mailto:jon.-@eu.nabgroup.com]
Sent: 06 October 2009 23:36
To: jleadermaynard; britishdebate
Subject: Re: [BD] UCL President's Cup - Pre-released Motion and Judges
Hi
There's around 900 people on this list worldwide. I understand the impetus for the debate, it's valid and whilst I hate to sound like an old fogey, I am, and there were motions that Glasgow union debated in the past such as "wife beating is a right and not a crime" around my time. Therefore the appropriateness of motions is not a new debate to have and has been had many times over in various incarnations.
I don't want to remove myself from BD but there are better forums for debate for this than here for this.
I would have thought it was possible to easily set up a facebook group or something similar to continue the discussion rather than emailing 900 people at a time? Some of us can't easily filter out some of this on email or blackberrys etc
Just a suggestion.
Thanks
Jon
Chairman English Speaking Union Scotland
________________________________
From: Jonathan Leader Maynard [jleader-@googlemail.com]
Sent: 06/10/2009 18:08 CET
To: british-@topica.com
Subject: Re: [BD] UCL President's Cup - Pre-released Motion and Judges
*the power to autonomously recognise the occurence of genocide.
Obviously.
Jonathan
On Tue, Oct 6, 2009 at 6:01 PM, Jonathan Leader Maynard <jleader-@googlemail.com> wrote:
Hello all,
For any of you who have not yet heard, the pre-released motion for this year's UCL President's Cup is:
This House Would give the United Nations Secretary-General to power to autonomously recognise the occurence of genocide.
This motion will be one of the first four preliminary rounds. All other preliminary rounds, plus the semis and final, will be 15 minutes prep.
I would also like to extend an open invitation to anyone interested in judging at President's Cup this saturday. The competition will run all day, and we'd ideally like judges to be there around 9-9.30am, though if you can make other parts of the day, that may be useful too. Anyone interested should get in touch with me on this e-mail address.
All the best,
Jonathan Leader Maynard
Chief Adjudicator, UCL President's Cup 2009
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