Messages in this thread | | | Date | Wed, 14 Oct 1998 23:06:24 +1000 | From | Richard Gooch <> | Subject | Re: Richard Gooch [LONG and OFFTOPIC] |
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James W. Laferriere writes: > > Hello David & All, Please go gentle here, He has a low tolerance > to the material in the mis-posted (&/or misguided posts) , What is > even worse I to have had the urge to throttle a few whom started > (& did back off when asked) the thread that got his ire up. > even though I am also an 'weapons enthusiast' , I did not > appreciate using the kernel-list as a medium of discussion . > > I myself haven't seen one of the mis-guided auto-replies in my > mailbox (yet) . So I'll ask those that did . Did the > offending auto-replies actually get sent, cc'd,... to one of > the lists ? , or were they directed to a particular individual ?
Sigh. I've already responded to people privately about this, but since confusion persists, I will make just one public statement about it. Any further comments should be sent privately. I've (again!) set the Reply-To: to /dev/null to discourage people from continuing this debate on the list. There are 2500 people on this list who could care less about my mail filter (or guns, for that matter).
1) I have not made any public statement (nor a private statement to any of the respondents on this thread) about my position on guns. My position on gun control is irrelevant in this debate. My only interest is in keeping offtopic threads off the list. Especially when such a thread is (obviously) controversial. That's why I responded in the first place to Eric in the hope that we could avoid a flamewar. I *knew* this was going to happen. Once people came back after the weekend, the argument on both sides started coming in.
2) I did not promise "not to do it again" as David said. David was afraid of me setting up a mail loop by bouncing back to the list.
3) All my auto replies were sent privately to the sender of offtopic posts, and included loop detection. Furthermore, I watch my mail filter like a hawk when I make changes, so even if I were to make a configuration error, it would be fixed damn fast. I'm very careful with this stuff.
4) If I see an offtopic thread, I see no reason why I should not complain (in private) to the poster. It is a private matter between myself and the person I send the complaint to, not a matter for the list administrators to get involved in. Alex took private action: fine. That's his choice. It's got nothing to do with the list. I am quite liable to manually reply (privately) to each and every offtopic post if I think it is warranted. The net effect would be the same, whether or not I automate the process.
5) I am really sick and tired of the stupidity, the flaming, the abuse, the immaturity and the offtopic threads on the kernel list. This list has become a cesspool. It used to be a nice place. A small number of players make the list unpleasant for the majority. I know people who don't post to the list out of fear of being abused, ridiculed or flamed. This is just so childish and unnecessary, and robs us of valuable input. So I have decided that I'mgoing to complain to people when I see unacceptable behaviour and show to others that you can conduct yourself in a civilised fashion and still have a healthy debate. Over the past few months I've been involved in technical discussions that gotten rather heated, and yet I've managed to stay calm, avoid flaming, and ask people to stop being abusive. I know what I'm saying is unpalatable for some people, but they need to take a good hard look at themselves and see the damage they are doing. Not only does it make the list unpleasant, but some people find it genuinely distressing. Believe it or not, some people hate conflict. Have a bit of consideration for these people and stop acting like a pack of schoolboys.
Regards,
Richard....
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