Re: Defining blues

[Barry Schaede <barrys@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

I often go private email in response to questions about often asked 
questions (OAQ's) because I have gotten gun shy from a time when I was 
involved in fairly technical discussion regarding the capacitor value of 
optimum sonic qualities for the JT-30/ Blues Blaster microphone.  "Why 
don't we just call this AMP-L" was the line I remeber.  When I do respond 
privately to an enquiry I often include the information that a more 
detailed discussion on the question being asked is also available through 
an indexed search of the archives.  Somewhat akin to what a good 
reference librarian does when you ask what Napoleon's birthday is.  
He/she tells you the answer then refers you to more extensive information 
on the subject.  There are a lot of new people on this list lately.  
Perhaps they don't realize that there is a core group of individuals on 
the list that have been here for years not weeks and perrhaps this core 
has seen the answer to how to do a number 2 draw bend on more than one 
occassion.  Not that this is a bad thing and that nothing should ever be 
discussed more than once.  A desire to put off and or arrogance is not 
the overriding concern when most people mention the existence of archival 
material.  The long time listers are a valuable resource to the entire 
list and part of their value is their ability to refer  people to good 
threads contained in the archives.  If you, Thomas Hinkle find this 
offensive I apologize.  It is certainly not my intent to offend.  In the 
same vein I often send answers to questions out into the net and never 
receive acknowledgement of their receipt or worth.  I also tend to send 
abbreviated answers because it's difficult to guage what is an 
appropriate answer and how much information the person wanted.  In 
pursuing my own personal questions privately I have found others on the 
list to be quite forthcoming in their private answers and their 
wiilingness to share information.  Finally the newcomers to the list have 
to realize that this isn't like blues-l or some of the other more chatty 
lists and newsgroups.  In the past the discussions although sometimes 
less frequent than on other lists have tended to be more substantative. FJM