NavList:

The NavList message archives can be useful. And the NavList message archives can be deadly. We're here for discussion of topics in traditional navigation. But if we just post links to messages from years ago, readers assume that there's nothing new under the Sun, and they may assume that this group is dead. Neither of those things is true. Additionally, if our message content includes many links to very old discussions, then search engines as well as other tools (yes, A.I. training) also write us off as dead. You can, of course, link to recent messages. And you can, of course, talk about navigation history and the history of NavList posts. But try to avoid burdening new posts with links to many years ago...

Here's a rule: no links to old NavList messages unless absolutely necessary, and in no case no more than one link weekly. An "old" NavList message will be defined as anything more than eighteen months old. There are tricks you can use to get around this limitation, and I encourage you to do so! Well, not tricks really --simply the "right way" to bring up a discussion from a long time ago: paraphrase as if it's new. For example, suppose you wrote what you believe to be a great description of the process of adjusting a sextant, but you wrote this five years ago. Don't link to it! Instead, visit your old post and copy-paste. Then put a little effort into editing the original text so that it sounds fresh (specifically remove any names or quotes, if any, from prior messages in the thread that started the conversation). It should sound as if you're writing fresh. And if your original text was really valuable, you can breathe life into it with a copy and a paste and a few minutes of editing. But a warning: if it's obvious to me that you didn't bother editing at all, your post will be removed. If you copy and paste, and it's obvious that you did so, your post will be removed.

Frank Reed