On Tue, 18 Jun 2002, Galbreath, Mark wrote: > I've been on this list for more than 3 years; it is self-moderating. > Only once has an individual been banned and that was for posting > constant racial flames. The policing of the list has always been > done by its dedicated users using standard hacker methods (see: > http://www.tuxedo.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html - read it, > learn it, live it). If you find this offensive, too bad. The > people who have the power to yank someone have better things to do > than listen to (much less act on) a few whiners complaining about > somebody violating their particular notion of political correctness. [ ... ]
This is only partially true -- the moderators have not been real active in monitoring this list, so to some degree it has been left to the subscribers to handle things. But there is (somewhat of) a list policy, and the moderators do show their heads from time to time. And of course, the subscribers have no real power to force anyone to behave a certain way. Further, you make it sound as if there's a clear consensus among the subscribers as to how the list should work, and that when issues arise (like too many off-topic posts), people are united in how they respond to them. In fact, this is not the case at all. There has been lots of disagreement about how the list should work and just how bad off-topic posts are. And even the ones that agree that off-topic posts are bad don't all respond the same way to them. Besides, this has nothing to do with "self-moderating", it was simply a case of you being obnoxious and going for the cheap laugh. Your remark was uncalled for. Especially in light of the fact that you've made plenty of "lame" posts yourself, asking some really inane questions. Give the person a break -- yeah, they made a mistake, their post was inapproprite, but there's no need to cheap shot them like that. It also has nothing to do with that much overused term "political correctness", it has everything to do with acting *professional*, something much more relevant than using "standard hacker methods". This is not some leading edge alt newsgroup, this is a mailing list for computer professionals trying to solve real problems, and just as it's important for those asking questions to act professional, so it is for you who respond to them, even (especially) if it's to get them to change their behavior. Milt Epstein Research Programmer Systems and Technology Services (STS) Campus Information Technologies and Educational Services (CITES) University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC) [EMAIL PROTECTED] ___________________________________________________________________________ To unsubscribe, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] and include in the body of the message "signoff SERVLET-INTEREST". Archives: http://archives.java.sun.com/archives/servlet-interest.html Resources: http://java.sun.com/products/servlet/external-resources.html LISTSERV Help: http://www.lsoft.com/manuals/user/user.html
