***** To join INSNA, visit http://www.sfu.ca/~insna/ ***** As Valdis seems to be a bit alone, I want to support his position briefly. Fishing expeditions, on the order of I don't know anything (and I don't want to bother learning) are not useful ways of eliciting information. They usually take the form of "Please tell me everything you know about X [broadly-defined]". Much more useful is reading up on X, and then sending a message saying "Given what we know about X [with details], could you help me understand X to Y." Abusive responses to this email will not be answered. Love to all, and Happy Thanksgiving to the Americans, Barry _____________________________________________________________________ Barry Wellman Professor of Sociology NetLab Director wellman at chass.utoronto.ca http://www.chass.utoronto.ca/~wellman Centre for Urban & Community Studies University of Toronto 455 Spadina Avenue Toronto Canada M5S 2G8 fax:+1-416-978-7162 To network is to live; to live is to network _____________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________ SOCNET is a service of INSNA, the professional association for social network researchers (http://www.sfu.ca/~insna/). To unsubscribe, send an email message to [log in to unmask] containing the line UNSUBSCRIBE SOCNET in the body of the message.