Written vs Phone Call
Years ago there was a thread on MLU about the difference in collecting or searching for information by phone or in a written form. My point back then when forums were relatively new idea was, to decry the American habit of picking up the phone instead of responding to a written inquire in writing.
My reasoning was that if you don't have a recorder running on the phone call much information is quickly lost where any form of written communication at least gives you a good chance of preserving the information the other person is imparting.
I singled out America because at that time because I was looking back to my early 1980s search for information on CMPs. Working from the MVPAs predecessors directory I wrote to every CMP owner listed including information on my HUP, a couple of photos and my general questions. A majority responded, those in the US all replied by phone and unfortunately most of the information and even who responded was gone with my memory in a short time. While I got great detailed letters with photos and drawings to answer my questions from Canada, Europe, and most surprisingly to me at the time from New Zealand and Australia. Several of those letters must have been responded to the day they were received, because I was getting responses in a little over a week.
Most of the information given in this written form is still in my files. Now I've tried to save all the information sent by e-mail in the years since. The photos I have succeeded in saving nearly 100%. Less so the actual e-mails, the lose of e-mail from not having a really effective way of saving and cataloging the e-mails. This failure to save and backup was recently driven home when I lost a large number of e-mails as never received or failed to save when I moved them to the CMP folder.
Now I will read what I've said and see if I should post it. Ok I read it made a few corrections and decided to post.
Cheers Phil
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