I wish I had the time to respond more fully to this. To briefly put my side of things:
Did anyone slap Gair's wrist? I posted a response to his forwarding of the Google/WMD message, the reply itself was a forwarded quote from the Guardian web site, referring to the e-mail which Gair forwarded. This might have been interpreted this as wrist slapping, I don't see it that way. It's started a discussion about the content of his message.
Again, the subject of moderation comes up. Is the moderator of a list not supposed to express views, or forward other people's opinions? Should all members of ambit be immune from any critique?
I dunno, try and make a joke and look what happens... As you say, let's try and relax a little.
Chris
At 2:29 pm +0100 9/7/03, Simon Yuill wrote:
It appears that once again an ambit subscriber has had their wrists slapped for posting an entirely innocent and well-meaning message to the list. This is disappointing, especially as the recipient of the slap has been someone who is a regular contributer.
Gair's emails have become a feature of ambit. They are largely informative, often entertaining and sometimes contentious. This is exactly the mix of input which makes for a good discussion, and ambit would definitely be a far less interesting place without them.
I appreciate that many people on the list may have already received the "google: weapons of mass destruction" email already, but there are also many who will not have. I am quite sure that Gair's intentions in sending it to the list were not malicious or thoughtless but rather to share something with the rest of us which he found pertinent and amusing.
Ambit is a relatively small mailing list and, as Gair rightly pointed out, contains quite a diverse mix of subscribers. I get the feeling that for many people this is the only list of its kind to which they are subscribed. For this reason, I agree with Gair's point that we should not assume too much about what other subscribers may or may not have read elsewhere. I also support Catriona's suggestion for allowing "leaks" of news from other lists to filter through on an almost random basis. Why not?
Let's be a bit more relaxed about moderating the list, and encourage contributions, rather than make pre-emptive strikes to impose "netiquette" on everyone. Gair may well have access to "weapons of mass dissemination" but an email account is hardly life-threatening. Public dressing-downs and online catfights will only discourage others from contributing, and make the list a less enjoyable place to be. Anyway, it's Summer, people should be out in the fresh air, not hunched over their keyboards getting het-up over what plops into their inbox.
I have a suggestion, let Gair be moderator of ambit for a while and let him set the tone and theme of discussion, put together whatever form of "netiquette" or rules of conduct the list should follow (if any), and let the current moderators of the list have a well-deserved break.
best wishes, Si.
Now, where's that piece of ascii art I was going to mail to everybody .....
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