[HPFGU-OTChatter] A response

[Andrew MacIan]

Greetings from Andrew!

Not the usual snappy lead-in, but a small amount of
history:

*Way* back when, I was one of the moderators for a
very large, very noisy and very flame-prone newsgroup.
 During that, erm, *experience* (for all you Hendrix
fans...), I learnt a valuable lesson or two.

The first one is:  You can't please everybody all of
the time, and all you'll get for trying is, well,
excrement.

The second is demonstrated below.

--- mafaldahopkirk <mafaldahopkirk at yahoo.com> wrote:
{snip} to the chase/lesson:


NOTE that the following may or may not be a quote from
Amanda; I've not taken time to check it.  Thus, please
do NOT presume that it is accurate, nor that I endorse
anything but the original quote, no matter what it
might be.

Potentially, I'll answer Amanda; perhaps that won't be
necessary.

Onward!


> Amandageist: To make my point. Penny and the
                                 *************
> moderators own the house
  ************************
> we're partying in. They have certain legal
  *****************

Note this, please.  This is *NOT* USENET; this is
*NOT* the WWW.

> obligations to the hosting
> service they must honor. They pay the bills and
> water the plants and 
> set
> out the onion dip. And they, because they do the
> list maintenance--own
> the house--have *every* right, andthe *obligation,*
> to tell the list
> when we're getting too loud, orobnoxious, or
> inflammatory. Don't start
> breaking the furniture. No feet through the TV,
> please.
> 
> Mafalda: The difference between a party and a list
> is the list is free
> to join. At parties there are discussions on certain
> topics which 
> liven
> up the party. There may be some topics that the
> party-giver may not 
> like
> but s/he doesn't kick the party-goers out because it
> is a topic the
> people are willing to listen to. The list makes it
> sound like the
> moderators aren't willing to listen to what we have
> to say. I've been 
> on
> the list and many lists before for nearly two years
> and when I first
> joined there were many topics (which are now banned)
> were freely
> discussed without vexation from the moderators. Even
> the mainlist 
> then,
> had many OT chatter topics before OT-Chatter was
> begun.

The lesson?  Amanda appears to be correct.  You don't
like the rules, leave. No two ways about it.  Either
you accept the rules or change the game.  You chose to
be here, you had the opportunity to ask about things
not covered in the FAQ(s) and had access to the
hosts/modertaors.  Instead, you choose to have a
rather (IMO) immature temper tantrum that does no one
any good.  Were I asked what chases off newbies, I
would categorically state that, in my direct
experience, people who choose behaviour patterns like
yours do so, *far* more often than does the moderation
style that I've seen here and in the archives.

Oh, and 'mafaldahopkirk'?  The other neat thing about
both USENET and the list is this:

*PLONK*

To the rest here, I remain,

Cordially,

Drieux

=====
ICQ # 76184391

'Each game of chess means there's one less
      Variation left to be played;
 Each day got through means one or two less
      Mistakes remain to be made.'
      --'Chess' by Sir Tim Rice

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