On Sat, 15 Jan 2005, Mario Goveia wrote: No one is forcing him to read every post. The subject line and the name of the poster should give him a clue if he is interested or not, and he can then either delete the post, read it, respond or just move on.
Fred Noronha responds: Mario has been putting forth this argument for some time now. It is however problematic, and is only partly correct. In fact, someone who takes a Marioesque position *is* indeed forcing him or her to download their message. Mario replies: I guess I don't understand how a member, who joins Goanet voluntarily, can then take the position that they are being "forced" to see the messages that have been posted. With that attitude, maybe they should not be members in the first place. I have previously said nothing about downloading messages, only about not being forced to read the messages that have been downloaded. Membership, in my opinion, includes receiving all messages that have been posted. The only alternative is a web site, where members can read only postings they want to without downloading all messages. Fred seems very sympathetic to the few Goanetters who complain about posts they do not like out of the 7,000 total members, most of whom seem to have no complaint. The Ribandar issue disturbs me, for example, but I respect those who are interested in the topic, and it doesn't impede my rights or interests in any way. Postings on multinational issues are a small percentage of the postings on Goanet. Furthermore, how can postings on international issues have anything to do with Lawrie's friend being reluctant to express his opinions on Goan issues on Goanet? Isn't it more plausible that this friend is afraid that his information and opinions on Goa-related issues will be challenged and opposed by others? I still have no idea what "off-topic" means in the context of an open forum like Goanet. Who decides what is "off-topic" and what is not? Either this is an open forum for all Goans wherever they live in the world, or it is a closed forum only for Goa-related issues. Fred has now created a new and unique idea of a posting on an open membership forum and bulletin board being seen as "spam", because the subject matter is not of interest to one or other member. This is a complete distortion of what spam means, which is unsolicited emails to an individual email address. When one becomes a member of a bulletin board open to postings by several members there is no expectation of an unsolicitated email on the bulletin board. Moderators should restrict themselves to membership rules and to preventing abuse. If Fred and Herman want to use restrict postings on Goanet then they should impose their will as they see fit. After all, they seem to be in control of the content. Members will respond and/or participate based on what they do. It's called "natural selection".
