From: "Bill Cole" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>
> No, Bill won't. Bill is pretty disgusted with people who don't bother
to
> read GML Charter and Guidelines. Among other things.
>
> Ms. McDermott -- You might be having a wonderful time but few others
> are. Please find other ways than GML to correspond with your close
> friends. Julian has suggested a couple ways and there is personal email
> as well. Would you stand up in a nice restaurant and yell, "Everybody
> MUST stop now and look at my gerbil pictures"? If you did that where I
> was enjoying dinner, I'd ask that you be thrown out.
>
> I have spent many hours coaching people by private email. It's a waste
of
> time IMHO because many of them don't remember for two minutes, if they
> bother to read at all.
>
Even before this I have been criticized privately for being gruff. Please
answer these questions for me:
** Are your local schools an institution? Who decides the daily schedule
for everyone, through high school? The kindergartners?
** Is your church an institution? Who sets the order of worship each
holy day -- the noisy newcomers who like to party? Is your church only
a social hall? Churches nourish newcomers, including the young. But
churches do NOT change their main goals in order to make newbies feel
good. Churches don't tolerate people playing ball in the middle of
services, nor interruption questions from the congregation like "Where is
Page 1 in whatever?" Ball and dumb questions can come somewhere else
where it doesn't bother everyone.
** Is GML also an institution intended to serve everyone, both those with
serious purposes and those with social ones (sometimes silly)? It happens
that GML is a pure community and has no formal leadership. But it still
is an institution open to all, with agreed-up Charter and Guidelines. As
for all institutions, people decide how much time to devote to GML. Many
good things happen when experienced keepers pair with novice keepers
privately.
Some things are driving people away from GM. How would that be for your
church or schools?
GML is like the Golden Goose. We can kill it and get no more golden eggs.
