m ike wrote: > > The basis is the camel's nose. Once you let the nose into the tent, the > > rest of the camel is soon to follow and pretty soon your archive is > > going to be meaningless. > > That statement makes me laugh so hard, that it is hard to believe you > were not being sarcastic. You really believe that just because some > people do something, that everyone will? Do you really mean > meaningless?
Yes. I do. And it need not be _everyone_ for it to turn useless. Person A: ``Can you remove that message? I did not mean to send that to the list.'' Operator: ``No. We don't do that.'' Person A: ``But I was insulting someone, and seeing that is a constant reminder, and a potential employer might run across it'' Operator: ``Oh, you make a good argument. Let me remove it.'' Person B: ``Could you remove this message from the archive?'' Operator: ``No. We don't do that'' Person B: ``You did it for Person A. Why the favouritism'' Operator: ``Damn. You got me there. I'll remove it.'' Person C: ``Can you remove this message? It contains wrong information about a problem, and the correct information is later.'' Operator: ``No. We don't do that.'' Person C: ``Why not? You did it for Person A and Person B. Besides, the correct information is still in the archive.'' Operator: ``Fine. I'll remove it.'' Person D: ``Hi. Can you remove this message? It is no longer topical, and refers to a product that is no longer supported or even made by the vendor.'' Operator: ``No. We don't do that.'' Person D: ``You have done it at least three times in the past, once for Person A, once for Person B, and once for Person C. You cannot tell me that you do not have a policy for removing messages.'' Operator: ''Fine. I'll remove it.'' Wow. That is one useless archive. We have one insulting message removed (which could be made an argument for), one presumably innocuous message removed, a message with technical merit albeit wrong information, and one with presumably correct yet outdated information removed. Let's hope that I never have a need to research that old product. -john -- KPLUG-List@kernel-panic.org http://www.kernel-panic.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/kplug-list
