'Tone of the list' discussion

[Lorenzo Taylor]

I actually fully agree that censorship is not really a good solution. The main 
point I was trying to make is that no matter how far we go to keep out 
troublemakers, short of approving every message, which is definitely not a 
workable solution, a person who is really trying to cause trouble won't just 
curl up in a corner and sulk. Instead, said troublemaker will do anything and 
everything possible to continue to cause trouble, even to the point of shutting 
down the entire list server if it seems possible. Just take a look at all the 
spammers who still try to send more and more clever forms of spam to try to 
trick readers into thinking their messages are not spam, even if the computer 
filter catches it. And look at the ones who can even trick the computer filter, 
although I haven't gotten one of those since I have had this email address, but 
they do exist.

No matter how strict regulation is, someone will find a way around it, which is 
why the absolute best thing to do is to ignore the troublemakers and police 
ourselves as a community of responsible users rather than relying on a few 
people, or even a computer to do it for us. And yes, that does include simply 
and responsibly ending nasty, troublesome and/or offensive threads. Let them 
die! Let them die! Let them die! instead of refueling the flames by contributing 
to them. Let us all just be sure we don't intentionally start flame wars and 
that we help the new user who comes along who is having a problem getting the 
best OS in the world up and running, or keeping it up and running.

If there is any criticism of someone's post, it's just common sense to either 
politely tell a person how best to correct it, or better yet, unless it's truly 
a technical issue and is just an annoyance to a few people, keep it to 
ourselves. Wading through a ton of messages telling the new user to simply 
"Please do not top post.", or "Please do not hijack my thread." along with the 
following flame war about which is better, top posting or bottom posting, while 
very few people usually mention that neither is the best way to reply to a list 
message, or the discussion about what is hijacking of a thread and what is 
not,causes just as much or more of a headache to a new user as the insulting 
remarks made about a person or his nationality because of his out-of-office 
responder or even the top posting, or yes, even the bottom posting, itself. Such 
criticism, even constructive, of someone's post, should also be sent off list, 
thereby avoiding much of the chatter and flame wars that get started on list 
over such seemingly nitpicky things. Yes, some of these things may be major 
annoyances to some of us, but to the new user who is having a problem with their 
OS, it seems like so much noise, and makes a new computer user's head really 
hurt. I give my wife enough of a headache just trying to explain why the way she 
accesses a web site is different now because I changed something or because I 
like to live on the edge with the latest prerelease and I broke something. She 
would never understand the concept of top posting or thread hijacking without a 
proper explanation of how best to correct the problem, and would probably give 
up if she needed to use the list to get help with something and only got 
unchecked criticism on list in return for her valid and legitimate question. An 
off list private explanation of how to correct the problem, along with an answer 
to her question either on or off list, however, would probably go a long way 
toward helping her to avoid making the same mistake again as well as help her 
with the problem she is having.

My $0.03, yeah, inflation and a fat tip jar, :)
Lorenzo
-- 
Nia diligenta kolegaro
En laboro paca ne laciĝos,
Ĝis la bela sonĝo de l' homaro
Por eterna ben' efektiviĝos.
--La Espero, himno de Esperanto