I was away from my computer all day yesterday, and have a dead phone
line as I write this so it may be a while before you see this.
I am in a deep depression.
I think a separate list is a terrible idea for the reasons I gave in my
earlier e-mail.
I would like to point out that the current charter does not prohibit any
sort of social chatter, and I would not have made many of the friends I
have made through the list if it did. What it does do is encourage
people to behave in a certain way, which some people have failed to do.
A social chat area will have a great number of posts concerning gerbils
and their behaviour. As a veteran who is always interested in learning
more about gerbils, I never forget that much of what I know has been
gathered from studying how other's gerbils behave. My point is that
serious discussion, and social discussion can not be totally divorced.
Before the term GML is used in the name of another list, I would have
thought it would have been a good idea to get some sort of democratic
agreement as that is how things are usually done here. If it is thought
by the majority that we should prohibit social chat here then I suggest
that the first step should be to get the charter changed. Until it is
changed, by the consent of the users of this list, then there is no need
to go anywhere else.
I would also like to suggest that rather than attempting to change the
character of this list, a far more successful proposal might be to set
up a separate list for asking questions to encourage quick response from
experts.
Right now I call on people not to move discussions elsewhere unless they
are not applicable to the agree charter. If people want to encourage
change of this list there are ways of doing it without taking unilateral
action.
Recently I spent a lot of time thinking about how we can make the GML
serve our users better, and fragmenting the list without proper
agreement is not one that had occurred to me.
My bottom line is that I do not propose to subscribe to a further
mailing list, and I encourage people to stay here.
--
Julian
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* Jackie and Julian *
* [EMAIL PROTECTED] *
* National Gerbil Society *
* http://www.gerbils.co.uk/ *
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