I agree with George Bailey. I don't see why a conservation question--or
its response--would be inappropriate on Museum-L. I think the complaint
was misguided. There are conservators on Museum-L, and non-conservators
associated with museums should have more than a nodding acquaintance
with conservation treatments, so an occasional dose of information about
the subject should be generally beneficial to all.
    Other complaints about allegedly "inappropriate" topics are posted
to the list from time to time. A request for travel suggestions was
debated recently, but I feel it's perfectly proper and logical for a
museum professional to request information which may not be readily
available from travel agents or in travel books--based on the personal
experience of colleagues with similar needs. These are judgment calls on
the sender's part. Sometimes we get so lazy and hypnotized in front of a
computer that we try to use our e-mail pals as a general information
resource and forget that a dictionary, other standard reference works,
or the telephone are sometimes more efficient. As much as I hate to see
requests for information that a person SHOULD be able to find elsewhere
independently, it's easy to jump to conclusions and erroneously assume
that a person is lazy, stupid, or inept, although there might be a good
reason for the request which isn't immediately evident. So I counsel a
little patience and a little slack.
    I suggest that complaints about the "appropriateness" of a message
be sent privately. Posting complaints to everyone often exacerbates the
problem, or spins it off into another tedious new thread. If YOU think
it's so obvious that a topic is inappropriate, do you really need to
point this out to EVERYone else? Some people are more comfortable
conversing on the list and prefer not to get private e-mail--which they
find threatening and confrontational--but the alternative is to risk
being embarrassed or embarrassing someone else in full view of all
subscribers. I took perverse pleasure myself in the response to the
person requesting a museum's address, with its advice to call directory
assistance and suggestion that such cluelessness does not portend a
promising museum research career. But perhaps it would have been kinder
to offer the advice to "try harder" in a private message. Public
complaints increase everyone's mailbox burden. If you have a gripe about
the "appropriateness" of a topic or want to deride the sender's syntax,
spelling, or mental limitations, it might be better to do it privately.
       While it may make sense to post an inquiry to the list requesting
specific information, a listserv REPLY might not be appropriate. Ask
yourself before you reply, is this message useful to the whole list, or
should it be sent solely to the requester? I recall the time Museum-L
almost became Artichoke-L: someone requested information about
artichokes, and a number of erudite botanists obliged, sending detailed,
impressive scientific esoterica to everyone on the list. But the
messages sounded suspiciously like they had been copied verbatim from
textbooks; did we all need copies? I sent a private e-mail to the
requester, asking why she couldn't get this information from an
encyclopedia in a library, and she replied that her library was "closed"
for the season and she was virtually isolated from the rest of the world
except for listserv and e-mail access. I didn't know whether to laugh or
cry (the former if she were pulling my leg, the latter if she truly was
so deprived of resources), but it occurred to me that the real
offenders, the true bandwidth hogs, were the lengthy public botanical
ANSWERS, not the original question.
     These are suggested ways to lighten the electronic mailbox burden.
Let's not try to censor questions because there is no universal
agreement about the appropriateness of topics, but ANSWERS should be
carefully considered: should they be dashed off to the whole list or
would it be better to make the additional effort to send them privately?
These are just opinions: you can argue privately, but I'm not sure an
extended discussion of e-mail etiquette is "appropriate" to Museum-L;
surely there's a specialized list on this popular topic! I wouldn't
presume to suggest a "policy": these are merely personal opinions,
musings, and requests. --David Haberstich

P.S. I find complaints about spams more annoying than the
spam--especially when quoted in its entirety. Spambusters, give it a
rest.