List topics (was Re: Help kill the Surveillance State Bill)

[Derek Martin]

On Tue, May 10, 2005 at 11:15:31AM -0400, Ben Scott wrote:
> Hey people!
> 
>   Not too long ago we had a rather prolonged discussion about whether
> political stuff like this appropriate for this forum.  While a formal
> vote was not taken, informally, a clear majority voiced the opinion
> that this stuff is better discussed elsewhere.  Someone even went so
> far as to create a separate forum where this kind of stuff was
> explicitly allowed.

If you really want it to stop, I think you're going to have to
moderate the list, plain and simple.  The reality is that the type of
people on this list are more likely than the average bear to care
about these kinds of issues, and whether any given person is personally 
interested in them or not, obviously a lot of people here are -- and
they're interested in discussing them with the people who are here.  I
think if you look, you'll find that even some of the people who
complain about this occasionally participate...

I'm not actually trying to argue that the list shouldn't ban political
discussions (though I wouldn't vote in favor of it).  I'm only trying
to point out the futility of it.  People are going to do it anyway,
and it's NOT about being rude, and it's NOT about being irresponsible.
It's about doing what comes natural in an environment that lends
itself to having exactly those kinds of discussions, and the passions
of the people who hang out here.  This particular topic was started
specifically by someone, but often they arise quite naturally from
something someone said in a post that was entirely acceptable to
everyone.  It's unavoidable.

Note that as with most political issues that surface on the list, this
topic IS at least tangentially related -- it's about the politics of
technology.  In our modern world, politics and technology are
inexorably intertwined...  Any and all OTHER discussions related to
technology, Linux-related or not, are happily endured; personally I
see no reason why these shouldn't be also, even if many people aren't
interested in them.  Many people aren't also interested in ham radio,
but that's ok here.  Linux advocacy is ok here too, but I don't see
how you can separate that from politics.  These discussions arise
very naturally on lists like this, and asking the type of people who
hang out here not to discuss them is like asking the average person
not to breathe, or at least like asking someone who's devoutly
religious not to talk about God.  It's just something you do...

Frankly it's a wonder to me that OT discussions don't happen here a
lot more often than they do...  I remember once when I was on the DHCP
mailing list, there was this endless thread about flying turbo props.
I found it annoying, but ultimately I had a lot of methods of just
ignoring it, so that's what I did.

Ben, you have been on mailing lists long enough to know that having
topic police rarely helps...  By the time someone speaks up, a dozen
people have already replied, and those replies breed more replies,
before anyone ever even sees the topic cop's complaints.  And even
after they see it, there will be those who feel passionately enough
about the topic (whatever it is) to feel compeled to respond to
something someone said anyway.

Moving topics off list also generally doesn't work.  Discussions
happen where they happen, and run their course where they started, or
not at all.

-- 
Derek D. Martin    http://www.pizzashack.org/   GPG Key ID: 0xDFBEAD02
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