> Occasional requests from the moderators for people to stay on-topic - which
> are generally sent privately, but sometimes via the list - elicit responses
> ranging in tone from "we don't give a damn," and "we could do without
> political commissars" to "don't take yourselves so seriously", and "we're
> just livening up the list, which is too boring."
I'd put it more strongly than some of the other responses -- I would kick
people off any list of mine if they said that. Someone's going to control
each mailing list, and if it's not the list owner, it'll be the most unruly
subscribers.
It's certainly true that some lists hew closely to the nominal topic and some
wander afield, but it's the list owner's call how far away it can go. If
people are under the misimpression that they have a "right" to post stuff to
your list, you can disabuse them of that easily enough. Dismal experience on
several of the lists and newsgroups I run have made it clear to me that
people who don't get the hint after two polite requests are incorrigible, and
you might as well kick them off sooner rather than later.
The suggestion of a companion list for the chit-chat is a reasonable one, and
it's worked for me once or twice, but it's no substitute for keeping control
of the primary list.
Regards,
John Levine, [EMAIL PROTECTED], Primary Perpetrator of "The Internet for Dummies",
Information Superhighwayman wanna-be, http://iecc.com/johnl, Sewer Commissioner
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