[plug] Arguing on list (round 2: ding-ding)

[Leon Brooks]

Bret Busby wrote:
> Leon Brooks wrote:
>> Heck, arguing on lists has gone on for a long time, at least it
>> has for the twenty years I've participated, and was going on
>> when I arrived.

> That doesn't make it right!

Maybe not, but it does make it acceptable, else it would have been
stopped by now.

And maybe it _does_ make it right. Perhaps a forum for argument is a
useful function for a list.

> Remember that WA supreme court judge, who said that it is okay to
> bash the wife, every once in a while, and the other WA supreme court
> judge that said that, if a wife is not a willing partner in sexual
> intercourse, that it was alright to beat her into submission, both
> quotes made in the last five years? It may have been regarded as
> acceptable behaviour, back in the cave man days of the supreme court
> judges, who do not live in the real world, but, that does not make
> the bahaviour right.

Show relevancy? This rant doesn't seem to be strongly related to what I
said.

By the way, in some (including local) cultures, if you don't hit your
wife occasionally, she regards you as a weakling and leaves you. I don't
like it, don't agree with it, don't regard it as right, but that's the
way it actually _is_.

>> People who complained about the complaining and arguing were
>> usually flagged TEA (Too Easily Annoyed) and banished from the
>> list for a while.

> That sounds dangerously like mob rule; the kind of lawlessness
> of lynching mobs, where the loudest prevail (sounds like politics).

No, that's true democracy, as distincy from republicanism. People don't
have to listen to endless drivel and politics on a "business" oriented
list. If they didn't like the moderator's actions, they choose a
different moderator. More or less automatic and need-driven. In most
cases, those who got banned had thoroughly earned it, and most of them
then went on to learn from the experience and become useful
contributors. Some ate sour grapes and left, and some were banned
permanently because their touchiness undermined the usefulness of the
list for the majority of participants. No system is perfect, but that
one works well in most circumstances.

In fact, the loudest are usually the ones that most often get warned and
eventually banned.

Also, that paragraph of yours sounded like another stretching-the-point
rant. Lynch mobs, indeed! You're losing karma points. (-:

>> If it bothers you, perhaps there should be a plug-heated (gloplug?)
>> mailing list that only mature and thick-skinned PLUGgers subscribe
>> to (or to which you are auto-subscribed two months after your first
>> posting in plug), and into which potential arguments could be taken.
>> I'm sure Matt would cheerfully oblige if asked.

> I believe that the interests of PLUG, and of the mailing list, would
> not be served by creating separate mailing lists for varying levels
> of being "thick-skinned" (should that read varying levels of
> pig-headed bigotry? (note: bigotry = intolerance of other people's
> opinions) ),

I disagree. It means a venting-place so people still talk to each other,
and so that data will not be lost as people are artificially polite to
each other. There's nothing to stop you from reading both lists, but
potentially sensitive newbies don't get bothered by (to them) useless
argument.

> We then got stuck with an argument, with emotive belittling of
> people's submissions.

Does comparing my suggestion with lynch mobs and spouse-beating count as
"emotive belittling of [my] submission"?

> That does not help anyone, and would not encourage any "lurkers",
> or spectators, or people trying the mailing list, to see whether
> it is worthwhile.

Hence a gloplug list: for people who don't really mind an argument but
don't want to blow away newbie lurkers. There would have to be a way of
finding out whether your potential sparring partner was on the gloplug
list. And if it doesn't work for you, unsubscribe.

> If another mailing list is to be created, and the postings
> separated from the primary mailing list, at all, perhaps, it could
> be one that relates to the arrangements for the game-playing (by
> game-playing, I mean such things as the quackathons, and so on).

Quackerthons? Duck races? (-:

I'd prefer a separate writeable-by-committee-only low-traffic
announcements list. There are people who care little for email traffic
but want to know when something important happens. Call it coreplug or
antennaplug or something like that.

-- 
Confidence is the feeling you have before you understand the situation.
If at first you don't succeed, try a shorter bungee. When in trouble,
when in doubt, run in circles, scream and shout. The two great secrets
of success are: don't tell anyone everything that you know.