Thanks, Charles.
_____ From: Charles Goldsmith [mailto:[email protected]] Sent: Tuesday, January 15, 2008 1:21 PM To: Fritz Holt Subject: Re: [Texascavers] OTtex vs. Cavetex Not a problem Fritz, you are now added, send emails to [email protected] On 1/15/08, Fritz Holt < [email protected] <mailto:[email protected]> > wrote: Charles, I didn't need much encouragement, so how do I get signed up for the OT list? I would hate to miss out on a few jabs at some of Locklear's and other's posts. I would hope that you could do it for me as I am not to adept on this new-fangled thing called a computer and my wife say's that I sure can't take instructions. Fritz, (Using the geezer excuse). _____ From: Charles Goldsmith [mailto:[email protected]] Sent: Tuesday, January 15, 2008 12:46 PM To: Fritz Holt Subject: Re: [Texascavers] OTtex vs. Cavetex Thank you the support Fritz and I personally enjoy your wit on the mailing list, please do join the OT, just when you have a OT reply to something from the cavetex list, send it to the OT for us to enjoy :) Charles On 1/15/08, Fritz Holt < [email protected] <mailto:[email protected]> > wrote: Charles, I like the post content of the list just as it is, with few exceptions. I have not requested to be put on the OT list as I spend too much time on this one as it is. I will probably be much more silent by staying on topic, which may be a little difficult. I mostly enjoy commenting or wise-cracking on others posts and recounting earlier experiences as my caving is now very infrequent. Most of my caving (spelunking) was done in the 50's and 60's. I have no criticism of your work, please keep it up. Fritz _____ From: Charles Goldsmith [mailto: [email protected]] Sent: Tuesday, January 15, 2008 10:59 AM To: wesley s Cc: [email protected] Subject: Re: [Texascavers] OTtex vs. Cavetex Wes, this mailing has never been moderated, even long before I volunteered to host it. Back when Bill Bentley asked for a volunteer to take over it, I'm pretty sure that I'm the only one who did volunteer. I host this list out of my own pocket, I'm not paid to do it, and it certainly does cost me a few dollars a month to do so, plus time spent taking care of the few administrative tasks. I even paid for the transfer of the domain from Bill, reimbursed him for payments he had pre-paid on the hosting, and also picked up the old cavetex.net domain when it became available, all out of my own pocket. Wes, I've never seen you offer to donate any cash to help with this cause, a few people have, and I've politely turned them down. I do this as a service to the caving community, it's my way of giving back. Why didn't you volunteer to host and admin this list when asked? I'm damned well not going to be told how to run this list by a single person. If the community as a whole wants to change things, we will, but I won't moderate it, someone else will have to step up to host, admin and then moderate. You don't dictate to me how things are run, try it again and you'll be gone quicker than you can say huh. That goes for anyone else that wants to complain how I host it. Now, don't get me wrong, I'm mostly an easy going guy, but until someone else puts the work into it, I'm not going to be criticized on how things are done here. No one has asked to be unsubscribed from this list to be put on the OT one, it's setup as a secondary list for the people that want to use it. I did not and will not copy the subscriber list from this list over to OT, it will have to be a voluntary subscription on everyones part that wants to join in at OT. Everyone, please review the recommendations on http://texascavers.com/about.html about posting here, that includes this email thread, but I'm going to post this anyway to everyone, just so that they know the facts. Also, keep in mind, I'm not asking for money, I never have and probably never will, I just want everyone to be aware of the circumstances. If you have questions about any of this, please reply off list to me. Thanks Charles On 1/15/08, wesley s <[email protected]> wrote: 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 people's 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 you're 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~
