Re: [Leica] Dear Leica...

[Ted Grant <tedgrant@islandnet.com>]

Martin Howard wrote:

>Considering the flame wars that range on this list from everything from
>what Scotch to drink, to the future of photography, the likelihood that
>the 700 of us could agree on a single list of items to send to Leica in
>an official capacity is slim indeed.  To further require such a list
>to be (a) intelligent, (b) related to current or future products and
>(c) non-threatening is slightly less probable than waking up tomorrow
>to find the Earth's rotation has changed direction.
>
>Don't get me wrong: I love this list, nonsense and all.  It's a great
>source of information and enjoyment and I've made many friends over the
>past year or so whom I would never have made contact with otherwise.
>
>But this is an Internet community: They are not like other communitites
>and, in particular, they do not submit to calm order.  There seems to
>be something inherent in the medium that promotes outspoken
>individualism (which I'm perfectly happy with).
>
>The suggestion is nice, but I don't think it is realistic.>>>>>>>

Hello Martin,

I agree with you completely, simply because we'd battle ourselves to death
deciding on which questions to ask! :)

Besides Leica Solms and NJ monitor this list all the time, so everything
that is posted is read, with items of reasonable importance are discussed.
The rest is deleted very fast. I bet on some days it's real quiet as they
"select all and completely delete!" :)

Imagine for a moment how much non Leica drivel we get ourselves into at
times. Scotch and sushi, wars of words and minds, non-Leica comparing other
hardware, developers, cow dung! :)  One can imagine there aren't too many
items that Solms need pay attention to.

For those who think "we are a powerful force of Leica users" we aren't!
Sorry to break your bubble of perceived importance in the world, despite
some who think we are and will argue this point. Yep we supply some
interesting Leica points on new equipment when used in the field.  And I
don't doubt for a moment have served Leica for improvements because we have
discovered something their testing engineers have missed. That's a given
and a reasonable assumption.

But to think we could collectively put to-gether a different set of
questions/topics every a month is a nice pie in the sky thought, but with
such a diverse group of minds, feelings, attitudes and experience, quite
frankly an immpossiblity past the first month.

Point: How many times does the indentical question/topic come up in any
given three month period? Think about that for a moment and recall "we had
that topic 2 months ago or go back and look in the archives before you ask
the same thing we answered last week etc etc etc."

It's a cool hypothetical idea, but hardly practical. A once a year list
might be a better idea and even then we'd have a battle over which were the
most relevant questions. :)

Just watch for the re-actions to this post and you'll see exactly what I
mean!:)
ted

Ted Grant
This is Our Work. The Legacy of Sir William Osler.
http://www.islandnet.com/~tedgrant