From your list manager: "name-calling"

[Mark Nottingham <mnot@mnot.net>]

[ with my list-manager hat on...  ]

I'd like to get a sense of the list as to whether the "name-calling" 
and similar traffic here is too distracting.

In the past, I've adopted a hands-off policy, because a) intervening in 
every incident is high-maintenance and b) it can easily be seen as 
being partisan. However, it is (perhaps once again) getting over the 
top. Although there does need to be some sort of "pressure valve" for 
the community (hey, it'll happen somewhere), I'm starting to wonder 
whether this is the appropriate place, especially since we have a 
number of newbies and other folks who could care less about this stuff.

One of the goals (or at least my personal goals) for this list is to 
drive convergence in the syndication community. I'd like to hear from 
the list members if they would have any problems with the following 
policy:

1) Posts containing ad hominem attacks against other people *or* their 
work (e.g., "bob is stupid", "bob's software sucks") are off-topic.
2) Posts not relating to syndication (e.g., "I'm going to ignore joe" 
(perhaps because he is stupid; see #1)) are off-topic.
3) People making off-topic posts will be warned on-list (so that no one 
follows up) once.
4) A person continuing to make off-topic posts after being warned will 
be banned from posting to the list for a minimum of two weeks; a person 
who continually makes off-topic posts after being warned will be 
permanently banned.

Please reply to this message if you have any issues with this, or think 
that it isn't necessary; if the community feels that this list is the 
appropriate outlet for this kind of stuff, I'm happy to oblige, but I 
don't think that's the case (OTOH, it could be that some people are 
subscribed to this list for the entertainment value only).


On Thursday, May 1, 2003, at 01:02 PM, Julian Bond wrote:
> And now back to our regularly scheduled name-cal^h^h^h^h^h^h^h^h
> discussions about syndication.