[luau] IMPORTANT - Upcoming List Policy

[Jimen Ching]

On 4 Sep 2002, Warren Togami wrote:
>1. No unsubstantiated controversial comments unless you are prepared to
>back up your claims.  Rational discourse is encouraged.  Irrational
>flames are not.

Heh...Why not require peace on earth and good will towards man.  ;-)

I think trimming the qoutes is the one requirement that should be imposed.
As for MS bashing and other controversial topics, I rather like it.  Of
course, those things will never go away.  I've been reading newsgroups
with lots of flamewars for a long time.  One thing I've learned is that
when a bunch of knowledgable people enter a flame war, a person can
extract a lot of knowledge from it.  Sometimes, a good debate livens up a
discussion.

Of course, I am always against personal attacks and name calling.  When
someone is reduced to this tactic in a flame war, it means this person is
not able to defend their position and basically lost.  Anyone who has
entered a flame war and survived, can spot this with ease and not fall
into such mud slinging.  Recognize it, call the person on it, and then
stop.  Of course, it is hard to recognize if you don't read flame wars
often.  ;-)

Lastly, I am against any censorship.  A while back, there was a BBS called
Flex.  On this BBS, there were 3 discussion boards dedicated to nothing
but flame wars.  The SysOp's philosophy was that no one should be censored
for their opinions.  And when two person's opinions are in stark contrast,
flame wars will ensue.  Though, if I didn't like the topic of the dabate,
I always ignored it and go back a week later for another topic.  I believe
other people frequent that BBS for the same reason I did.  Some people
actually like this stuff.  ;-)

Perhaps specialized topics like linux for schools does not belong in a
general purpose mailing list like Luau.  I believe the idea of censorship
came up in the past and was shot down.  Of course, videl is your server
and no one can force you to host a list you don't like.

--jc
-- 
Jimen Ching (WH6BRR)      jching at flex.com     wh6brr at uhm.ampr.org