Of Lightbulbs and Listservs

My husband belongs to a yahoo group listserv that he says “is exactly like this!” I didn’t have the heart to tell him this is what they’re ALL like. If you’ve ever belonged to one, you’ll find this funny. And sad.

How many list members does it take to change a light bulb?

1 to change the light bulb and to post that the light bulb has been changed.

14 to share similar experiences of changing light bulbs and how the light bulb could have been changed differently.

7 to caution about the dangers of changing light bulbs.

27 to point out spelling/grammar errors in posts about changing light bulbs.

53 to flame the spell checkers.

41 to correct spelling/grammar flames.

6 to argue over whether it’s “lightbulb” or “light bulb”… another 6 to condemn those 6 as anal-retentive.

2 industry professionals to inform the group that the proper term is “lamp”.

15 know-it-alls who claim *they* were in the industry, and that “lightbulb” is perfectly correct.

156 to email the participant’s ISPs complaining that they are in violation of their “acceptable use policy”.

109 to post that this group is not about light bulbs and to please take this discussion to a lightbulb group.

203 to demand that cross posting to hardware forum, off-topic forum, and lightbulb group about changing light bulbs be stopped.

111 to defend the posting to this group saying that we all use lightbulbs and therefore the posts *are* relevant to this group.

306 to debate which method of changing light bulbs is superior, where to buy the best light bulbs, what brand of light bulbs work best for this technique, and what brands are faulty.

27 to post URL’s where one can see examples of different light bulbs.

14 to post that the URL’s were posted incorrectly and then post the corrected URL’s.

3 to post about links they found from the URL’s that are relevant to this group which makes light bulbs relevant to this group.

33 to link all posts to date, quote them in their entirety including all headers and signatures, and add “Me too”.

12 to post to the group that they will no longer post because they cannot handle the light bulb controversy.

19 to quote the “Me too’s” to say “Me three”.

4 to suggest that posters request the light bulb FAQ.

44 to ask what is a “FAQ”.

4 to say “didn’t we go through this already a short time ago?”

143 to say “do a Google search on light bulbs before posting questions about light bulbs”.

1 forum lurker to respond to the original post 6 months from now and start it all over again!

So which one are you?