RFC: Make political discussion off-topic by rule (was: America ...)

[Benjamin Scott]

  This is a reply to a message in a different thread ("Linux Cafe") which,
although it was posted before this thread, is very relevant to this thread.

On Fri, 7 Jan 2005, at 5:19pm, puissante at biz.puissante.com wrote:
> I have no problem with topic-oriented groups at all.  However, with all
> the topic groups I've been a member of, members always have the "itch" to
> discuss off-topic issues.

  I've long maintained that this list has a fairly loose definition of
topic, that occasional "off-topic" messages are in fact desirable, and that
the last thing we want to do is create the Topic Police.

  But.

  It's one thing to have the occasional random discussion.  It's quite
another entirely to have *the same discussion*, *over and over*, *saying the
same things*, *by the same people*, *every five weeks*.  That's what I've
been seeing here.  IMNSHO, it has more in common with spam and mailbombing
then anything else.

  The thing that pisses me off the most about this whole thing is that some
people come on to this list and originate a thread that is *clearly* doing
nothing more then pushing their pet political agenda.  Linux had nothing to
do with it; this list was just the nearest captive audience the OP had.  If
the OP was a member of a recipes list or a auto-mechanics list, that would
have worked as well.  And then people have the *nerve* to say, "Well, I
didn't think we had Topic Nazis here."

  Where I come from, it's considered rude to walk up to a group of people
talking about something, and just barge in with, "George W. Clinton is the
worst Minister of Redundancy Minister this kingdom has ever had!"  I didn't
think it was necessary to have formal rules to prevent that.

  I wouldn't have figured that, at the ripe old age of 27, I would be
pinning for the good old days when people had manners.

  I'm gonna go sit in a rocking chair and yell at kids from my porch now.

-- 
Ben Scott <bscott at ntisys.com>
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