Inappropriate tone on this mailing list and requiremenfofor goce

[Derek Broughton]

Bret Busby wrote:


> I also think that it is appropriate etiquette, before a person responds
> to a message in a thread, for the person to (I can do this in PINE, so
> people with GUI MTA's should be able to do it) sort the messages in the
> folder by subject, and read all of the messages in the thread. That way,
> duplication of responses can be minimised, and "End this thread"
> messages that are posted by list administrators/moderators, can be
> found. It is easy enough to, after having read or skimmed the messages
> in a thread, return to the message at which that resort was done, and,
> resort the messages by order of arrival.

Actually, no, it isn't "easy enough".  Perhaps if you only read one list.  
It might be "easy enough" if people didn't routinely break threads, or 
hijack threads, but routinely I read all the posts I have on a topic only to 
find three new threads 20 posts later.  Anyway, that does nothing to prevent 
the issue of people continuing to post to a thread a moderator has announced 
as "closed" - or duplicating somebody else's post - simply because they 
haven't yet _received_ those posts.  If moderation must be done, it's simple 
enough to just drop any posts after the moderator has closed a thread 
(_without_ ragging on the poster, as has happened to me in a certain other 
Ubuntu list which is moderated).
> 
> And, that way, if a list administrator or moderator has posted a
> message with a subject like "<thread subject> - END THIS THREAD NOW" and
> messages are posted with that subject after a period of time, for
> example, four hours, at the discretion of the list
> administrators/moderators, then the poster of such messages are "fair
> game" for removal.

Why should they be - they can't post, they can't hurt anyone.  Now if they 
explicitly break the threading and change the subject, it might be fair to 
remove the poster, but not for continuing a thread for however long that can 
never reach the servers anyway.
-- 
derek