I wholeheartedly agree with your first sentence, Charles. In all of my years of being involved with Scouting, soccer, softball, caving, and other volunteer activities, there's never a shortage of critics. A shortage of doers/volunteers? Always, but never a shortage of folks criticizing how you do something. Creating the "On Topic" and "Off Topic" list was brilliant. Let everyone else "self moderate" by hitting the delete key. You're doing a superb, yet, thankless job and we all appreciate you for providing this service. Criticism is all too common, but, "pats on the back" are, often times, too infrequent. Much like being the TEXAS CAVER editor! 8^)> (A smirking) Mark
________________________________ From: Charles Goldsmith [mailto:wo...@justfamily.org] Sent: Tue 1/15/2008 12:52 PM To: Kara Savvas Cc: Johnson, Russ (ATX); imoca...@comcast.net; Scott Nicholson; o...@texascavers.com Subject: Re: [ot_caving] [OT] Re: anyone else here yet? There are always people who complain, that want change, and most aren't willing to help with it. I probably went off on Wes a bit hard, but it struck a nerve and I'm having a bad year so far, so I vented a bit. He deserved it, but probably not as harsh as I did it. Splitting the list is probably an easy way out, shutting up the complainers, but I'm hoping that it will actually drive more people to our Texas caving chatter here on either of the lists, making us grow more. Growing these lists also helps out our Grotto's and Regional groups (TCMA, TSA, TCC, etc). If people have ideas that will help us grow as a community, I'm game and will assist where I can. Charles On 1/15/08, Kara Savvas < misskarabi...@yahoo.com <mailto:misskarabi...@yahoo.com> > wrote: I don't need consoling! :-) I'm doing just fine. I'll ask again, why aren't people saying this on Texascavers? I respect some of the objectors very much, too, but wish they would get over themselves for a minute. I don't think the uglyness came from any particular subject, it came from a FEW INDIVIDUALS. I considered a Poll, but I think that would be beat back considerably. But I also think there are more pro-OT people on Texascavers than not. This is the bottom line for me - I think there is a kind of an arrogant move to try to 'get rid' of high volume posters that some don't find to be "serious" enough about caving. And that bothers me. With a little perspective, its is just all so silly. But I say, give Cavetex what it asks for, and maybe they will come around? Or not. But the experiment is worthwhile. k ----- Original Message ---- From: "Johnson, Russ (ATX)" < russ.k.john...@westonsolutions.com <mailto:russ.k.john...@westonsolutions.com> > To: imoca...@comcast.net; misskarabi...@yahoo.com; Scott Nicholson <csnichol...@sbcglobal.net> Sent: Tuesday, January 15, 2008 8:55:50 AM Subject: FW: [ot_caving] [OT] Re: anyone else here yet? Alex and Kara, Fear not, cavetex will be back. I am hopeful that OT-tex will be abandoned in time. No plans for me to subscribe. The public beat-downs on OT postings happen periodically. I have a lot of respect some of those who have complained, and their right to express themselves. And I appreciate fully the modern torture of having to wade through more email than any one mind should have to endure. It is healthy and appropriate for this complaint to arise every so often, especially if things get ugly as they recently have. OT postings will get quiet and remain so for a bit. Then they will resume a tolerable normal background noise level...as it should be. Then one day someone will get under another's saddle and this will all repeat. This cycle has repeated several times since the days of the primordial Cavetex list, it is natural. However, for the reasons Alex so eloquently expresses below, the curmudgeons should not be allowed to run the rest of us off. It is our list too. Frankly, those interested in (or at least willing to delete) the OT postings outweigh the ones complaining. So I encourage everyone to let OT-tex die on the vine, not the real caver email server. I surely thought I had heard enough on the evolution-religion thread ... but just then someone posts an interesting and thoughtful statement that causes everyone to pause. I wouldn't miss it. Everyone would lose if we lost the postings on S. Texas railways, the Rio Bravo, and twisty tobacco, pig and chicken-operated one-holers and other brick shithouses, Terlingua goats, ...I could go on. Please feel free to forward this to OT-Tex. Russ Llano, TX ________________________________ From: Scott Nicholson [mailto:csnichol...@sbcglobal.net] Sent: Monday, January 14, 2008 11:09 PM To: Johnson, Russ (ATX) Subject: Fw: [ot_caving] [OT] Re: anyone else here yet? you should forward this to cavetex. Scott Nicholson Broker/Waterboy The Discovery Team (512) 94-SCOTT {947-2688} Keller Williams Realty ----- Forwarded Message ---- From: Alex Sproul < > To: o...@texascavers.com Sent: Monday, January 14, 2008 10:26:20 PM Subject: Re: [ot_caving] [OT] Re: anyone else here yet? Absolutely! Kara, you are clearly feeling a lot better! Glad to see it! I agree that this splitting of the list is silly and divisive and doomed to failure, but in the meantime, I don't want to miss any of the juicy bits! In case any of you Tejanos haven't noticed (I started to say 'have your heads so far up, you can't see' but that wouldn't be PC...), you have THE largest, busiest, most vibrant and entertaining caver mail-list in the country. You know it's good if the internationally renowned Sr. Sleaze Weasel has joined up and become a regular contributor. (And what, pray tell, could be more OT than *that*??) I very much look forward to my daily dose, I mean digest, of Texas tripe, all the way up here in VA. I'm a member of every caver list I know of, and texascavers is my fave. Why? Because it's always so full of irreverent humor, witticisms, strange factoids, and tall tales from the likes of Gil 'Oztotl' Ediger, Sleaze, and the DirtDoc, not to mention SpeleoSteele, WaV, and others, and certainly to mention the inimitable David Locklear. Sure, all the lists have a Rule Numero Uno that says all posts have to be caving related. Some of them actually enforce that. The VAR list has ONLY posts directly related to caving, and I get one, maybe two digests a week, each with one message in them. Bo-ring! TAG-Net is always extolling the virtues of it's 5,000-word trip reports, which put me straight to sleep. Bo- ring!! And they have actually excommunicating cavers for not playing by the rules! I love TAG, and I love Texas, but I don't cave there very often, so mostly I scroll past the cave talk, looking for the interesting stuff. I think Rule Numero Uno was misprinted -- it meant to say '"caver-related"... After all, cavers are all one big happy family, and we all care about each other, and what each other are doing and thinking. All that stuff should be fair game on the list, so long as everybody uses a modicum of common sense and tact. Oh well, I guess we're now off to see who has more fun, the list with the latest trip to Airmans, or the list with tales by Sleaze and Gil and Locklear, and other interesting stuff thought of/up/about BY cavers, and therefore inherently cave(r) related. Alex -- Alex Sproul, NSS 8086 NSS IT Committee --------------------------------------------------------------------- Give this to a friend: ot-subscr...@texascavers.com To unsubscribe, e-mail: ot-unsubscr...@texascavers.com For additional commands, e-mail: ot-h...@texascavers.com CONFIDENTIALITY: This e-mail and attachments may contain information which is confidential and proprietary. Disclosure or use of any such information without the written permission of Weston Solutions, Inc. is strictly prohibited. If you received this e-mail in error, please notify the sender by return e-mail and delete this e-mail from your system. Thank You. ________________________________ Never miss a thing. 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