Marsha wrote: > OK, you win, I`m outta here. I hope someone will benefit from CS, in > spite of you.
And so Marsha and Roger, and the rest of us, reap the harvest of trying to play List Cop. Marsha is welcome to consider the tech stuff boring and the boorish behavior of the "mo power guys" distasteful! Heck, if I didn't care about it as much as I do, I would too! Where she stepped out of line is by telling them to go away... I'll get back to this point in a moment. Roger, forging ahead in the cause of free speech and Liberty for *ALL!* ... ahem, sorry ... registered his criticism of Marsha and accused her of various crimes against the community, being admittedly a bit up in the dander over her attempt to limit discussion ... When you've got two folks who are both essentially correct, and each arguing about different things, or different aspects of the same problem ... well, feelings get hurt. Now let me draw our two friends' reactions together into one context, perhaps the only one that really matters here... The list is a near perfect example of a benign dictatorship. I can shut it down today and not one of you would have a legal or civil basis to act against me. I can invite anyone in, or kick them out, deciding for myself what standards of behavior will influence that choice, if any! I can be as just or as arbitrary as I want to. The only recourse you have is to try to persuade me to change things, or the option Marsha is exercising, that of voting with your feet. Each of you is here as my guest. As your host, I need to do what I can to make you comfortable, the company good, and topics of discussion of value. If I deliver that value -- good information, camaraderie, a pleasant environment -- the list will survive and even prosper. I have been negligent. I have let the technical discussions dominate and failed to intervene when they became too surly. Ivan notes, correctly, there has been little other discussion to "dilute" the effect of the tech-talk since we established the [email protected] <shameless plug>. I ought to have been reminding lurking newcomers to ask for help and everyone to continue to use the list as before, with the proviso that OT discussions now have a place to *go* when they need to be taken off of the silver-list. So, Marsha, I need to apologize to you for recent conditions on the list, and say again that I consider you a valuable member. I respect your right to leave at any time that we don't serve your needs, or that the aggravation outweighs the benefits. Only I wish you wouldn't. Roger, Marsha has no more right than you do to police what others say on the list. If others were unexpectedly reluctant to step forward it's probably because they recognized that it's not their place to do so. Or, given the rawness of the list lately, maybe they'd just given up caring one way or another. I hope not. But it wasn't your job to correct her. Such complaints as yours and hers should be brought to *me*. I'm the only real List Cop. And I apologize to *you* for permitting the conditions that triggered Marsha's outburst. I will encourage the technical discussions to continue, as long as *all* the participants meet their obligation to treat others with respect and leave competition and hostility at the door. Let me also remind everyone to use the list to get what you need, whether basic information, a bit of reassurance, or help with a specific problem. Contribute what you can by sharing your results and answering the questions that you have experience with. Not all the discussion will be on-topic, but we can keep the list from being overwhelmed by it if everyone would go to ... http://groups.yahoo.com/group/silver-off-topic-list ... and set up a yahoo username and password if you don't have one already, then subscribe to the silver-off-topic-list. Now, if you *don't* want to see the off-topic discussions come into your regular mailbox, click on Delivery Options on the list home page and select "no e-mail." Then, anytime you want to follow an OT thread to that list, you'll be able to browse it at the web site, post your comments if you want to, and otherwise ignore the whole thing without any further burden on your time. If we use them right, the silver-list will stay better focused on the main topic, while the silver-off-topic-list will satisfy our curiosity about other things. The net effect should be *more* needs being met more completely, while unburdening the delete key fingers of the folks on the silver-list. Except for tech talk, people have been afraid to bring up anything on the silver-list lately for fear of being off-topic. Amazingly, after an initial flurry of activity, the OT list has been fairly quiet as well. This tells me we're not making the best use of our resources. Please help me to change that for the better. In the end, please remember that you are my guest here. If you hurt or insult another member, you hurt or insult me. If something needs my attention, you need to send me a message and let me know what's going on, or how you'd like to see things changed. I won't act on every suggestion or complaint, but I take what I hear into consideration and try to make the list as helpful as possible for the most people as I am able. I maintain the silver list because it is a worthwhile thing to do. There are a lot of things I need to learn about alternative health and the people here are a valuable resource. I also enjoy many friendships among you and the value the encouragement I receive from the group. But I am especially proud of the help that we give to new people and the way the word is spread. Right now we're trying to adjust to a number of changes, not the least of which is an effort by me to delegate a few things to others on the list. Please be patient. I imagine your reasons for being here are similar to mine. I have no doubt that we can make it work. Be well, Mike Devour silver-list owner [Mike Devour, Citizen, Patriot, Libertarian] [[email protected] ] [Speaking only for myself... ] -- The silver-list is a moderated forum for discussion of colloidal silver. To join or quit silver-list or silver-digest send an e-mail message to: [email protected] -or- [email protected] with the word subscribe or unsubscribe in the SUBJECT line. To post, address your message to: [email protected] Silver-list archive: http://escribe.com/health/thesilverlist/index.html List maintainer: Mike Devour <[email protected]>
