Maybe we both are in a bad mood :) I didn't see your posting until I sent mine.
-----Original Message----- From: "Linda Palit" <[email protected]> To: "wesley s" <[email protected]>; "[email protected]" <[email protected]> Sent: 1/15/2008 10:42 AM Subject: Re: [Texascavers] OTtex vs. Cavetex Hold on. Are we trashing our unpaid volunteers who make "Cavetex" possible? Maybe this is a joke and I am missing it. Maybe we have a new volunteer to take over the duty of being a moderator. Solutions are not composed of "somebody should" -- either I volunteer to help___ or nothing makes more sense to me. Maybe I am in a bad mood this morning and should just stop e-mailing. Linda wesley s <[email protected]> wrote: .hmmessage P { margin:0px; padding:0px } body.hmmessage { FONT-SIZE: 10pt; FONT-FAMILY:Tahoma } Divisive to say the least! This is like a political party schism. The attempt to purge the unwanted instigators will only weaken the group as a whole and create more animosity on the part of the fence sitters who stayed out of the argument but generally support the system. This is a really half assed solution if you ask me. Yes we could ask every caver to delete his/her inbox full of OT posts and be done with it but this relies on too many peoples adherence to a logical course action. Furthermore it is, as has already been stated, effectively spam. This sort of activity has been tolerated far too long and the creation of this new listserv is pandering to the perpetrators in order to not be accused of censorship. Unfortunately censoring is exactly what should be done. The list populous has made it abundantly clear that they do not appreciate the off topic rants and threads and wishes there to be some sort of regulation of this listserv. Why, Charles Goldsmith, have you elected to be so lax? While I host this mailing list, I let you folks moderate it, I'm not going to. If I get enough people complaining about one or more users, I'll send out a warning email, outlining the rules and asking to please stop. If it continues, I'll remove you from the list, that simple. However, out of all of this, I have yet to receive any emails about it, I think the community took care of itself in this matter. If you are unable or unwilling to be a moderator for this listserv than we need to find someone who is and have this thing moderated like all the others on the great wide web. There is a reason why moderators are a ubiquitous feature on listserves. Humans wander in their thoughts and if they are posting to a topic limited list they are bound to stray off topic. That is where the moderator comes in and steers the individual or thread back on course. And passive moderating does not work! These topics seem to run their courses over a short period of time, but I do think that some of them should be answered off list to the person directly. This is not a solution! It is lethargy. And furthermore the audacity of those individuals who attempt to link their topic by six degrees of separation to caving somehow are not fooling anyone. We know youre trying to mask the issue. Perhaps those individuals who simply want to have wild, broad discussions about anything and everything would be better served by a separate listserv but I hardly think they are a large enough group to sustain a separate list. Consequently they will come back and continue posting OT emails to Cavetex. We need regulation. Not because it is necessary to stifle entertaining discussions and keep caver thought and opinions in line, but because it is discourteous to the entire subscribership to let the posts become more than say 30% off topic. I enjoy some of these threads as much as Kara and others, and anyone who knows me knows how anti authoritarian my views are, but in the name of keeping our subscribers and preserving a place for caver information exchange on the internet please rein in these individuals. Wes~ --------------------------------- List-Post: [email protected] Date: Mon, 14 Jan 2008 18:54:28 -0800 From: [email protected] To: [email protected] Subject: [Texascavers] Re: OT Off topic time, all the time. Oh yeah, we talk about caves, too. .ExternalClass DIV {;} Please join in a lively discussion at [email protected]. If it is important to you, a caver, it is worthwhile to talk about. Like Caving, we're about the Journey, not the destination. Respect is key, so is participation. While I fear the divisive nature of this approach, I'm willing to give it a shot. There are better things to talk about, which most of us probably agree, (but never all of us) so let's get on with it. Please exercise your delete command with the list, [email protected]... where, should you need to, deleting rants from flamers is your prerogative, and renders flamers irrelevant, not subject matter. Now run along and play with your silly off-topic friends Kara [email protected] to subscribe --------------------------------- Put your friends on the big screen with Windows Vista® + Windows Live. Start now!
