The following message was originally sent on 2/8/99 in response to a posting
by Mark Straub (see quote below); however, the message seems to have gotten
lost somehow at the MEMS clearinghouse and so I am re-posting it.
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To all,
        I heartily agree.  I have been noticing lately that the list is an
ongoing
list of unanswered questions.  I've gotten to the point where I reflexively
delete most of the postings on this list because there is so little "meat"
to them.  Maybe there is some discussion going on behind the scenes, but it
is not reflected on the list.
        I have seen other lists that *require* summaries.  In those lists, the
point is to minimize traffic and to maximize signal-to-noise ratio.  If one
has a question it is posted directly to the list.  By asking a question, one
incurs the *obligation* to summarize the results of the responses to those
on the list.  When summarizing, the summary generally has the same subject
heading, however it is preceded by the word "[Summary]".  Thus, if the
initial question was "How do I build an accelerometer?"  The summary would
be "[Summary] How do I build an accelerometer?"  This is exactly as Mr.
Straub and others have mentioned.
        With regard to summaries, there are generally two types.  Some wish to
paraphrase and reformulate the responses in a short coherent couple of
paragraphs.  They will generally lists the respondents either in the body of
the message, much like a reference in a paper, or will list the names of the
respondents at the end of the message.  Alternatively, one can simply quote
the relevant passages from each of the replies in series and allow the
reader to draw their conclusion directly from the original texts of the
replies (with address headers stripped out for brevity and only the relevant
text remaining).  In this case, each quotation should begin with the name
(and/or email address) of the person being quoted, followed by the text (use
of the ">" at the beginning of each line helps tremendously to distinguish
the quoted material.)
        I have seen systems like this work very well on high traffic mailing
lists,
especially when there is a division between the experts and the novices.
The point is to find a mechanism where the experts are willing to offer
their knowledge and the novices have access to it.  The experts are usually
very busy people and get tired of answering the same question
week-after-week, and they eventually either stop responding or they just
drop the list entirely and find a list without the novices.  I have seen
this happen too many times on different lists, it would be a shame to see it
happen here.
        These are my thoughts and I propose them to the members of the MEMS
Clearinghouse for consideration.

                Best regards,

                Kevin Shaw.

P.S. With regard to the question of whether to have a USENET group, I would
instead vote to continue with the mailing list format.  It is much more
convenient for me.  However, perhaps the list managers could implement a
"Digest" mode.  With the digest, one receives only one message a day
containing the combined text of all the posted messages that day.  Very
often the first couple lines of the digest will contain a brief "table of
contents" listing only the subject and author for each message contained in
the digest.  This lets one quickly scan through the list of topics for
anything of interest.