Mailinglist Archive: opensuse (4600 mails)

[Vince Littler <suse@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Thursday 22 January 2004 7:03 pm, Joe Sullivan wrote:
> Q17. I was being polite and prefixed the subject of my off-topic posting
>      with '[OT]'.  After posting it I received a nasty message about
>      the thread being blocked and that if I persist in trying to start
>      off-topic threads I'll be unsubscribed and blocked from resubscribing.
>      What's up with that?
> A17. Sorry, we really have no choice.  We've asked nicely over the years
>      for people to take their off-topic threads elsewhere in the interest
>      of keeping the messages per day on SLE under 200 and, well, that
>      just didn't work.  We now have a list, suse-ot, that's devoted
>      solely to off-topic discussions.  That's right, all off-topic all
>      the time.  Email suse-ot-subscribe@xxxxxxxx to subscribe.

Are you volunteering to be the moderator, Joe? I have a very difficult 
question for you, but if you are very good at getting this question right, 
perhaps you will be a real moderator one day. Wouldn't that be nice?

Now, Joe here is your very difficult question. Remeber, there is no right 
answer, not that I know of, which is why I don't pretend to be a moderator 
myself. But I can tell you, it is all about having the right personal 
qualities and making people feel really good about themselves. So, Joe, here 
is your question, read it very carefully and think hard before you answer, we 
don't want a knee jerk reaction now do we? Because that might only make the 
problem worse.

So, how would you deal with the person who writes the samples at the end of 
this post?

If you read behind the words and look for the emotions, Joe, you might guess, 
he is very angry, and you would probably be right. So you must make him feel 
good about himself so he doesn't feel the need to show that he can control 
what other peole talk about on the list. You mustn't let him know that you 
really think he is acting like an overtired and selfish 4 year old, must you 
Joe? Even though he only takes into account his own opinions, you have to 
reassure him that his opinions are respected by all the other people on the 
list even though at the same time many of the other people have quite 
different opinions of their own. It is a difficult problem isn't it, Joe? And 
some of the people are laughing at his anger, which isn't going to help any. 
No, the people who are laughing are very bad too, Joe, but they are not 
hurting themselves with their anger.

If you try really hard to look to the interests of all of the people on the 
list, perhaps you will come up with a very good answer, Joe. And if you do, 
perhaps you would speak to this person off list for us and help him have a 
nice day too. Please don't make him go away, just help him be a nice person 
again. If you make him tolerant, that would be just what we need in a 
moderator.

But Joe, don't think that this is simple, he is so angry he is very likely to 
get more angry, and come out with even more profanity and abuse. That 
wouldn't be very nice at all would it, Joe?
  

sample 1:
=========
> This party's over, get the fuck out.

sample 2:
=========
> Yo Low-IQ boys!
>
> Re-read the purpose of this damn list.
>
> What is it?
>
> Is it "whine"?
> Nope.
>
> Take this incredibly stupid crap off the list. Nobody else signed up for
> it.
>
> And for the love of Goddess, this is proof positive of a desperate need to
> get a damn life.
>
> Get one while you quit *intentionally* violating the purpose of this list.
>
> Don't go away mad. Just go away.

sample 3:
=========
> Read The FAQ, or FAQ off

sample 4:
=========
> You're right. After being told several times the topic is inappropriate for
> this list, yet being too damn brain-dead to comprehend that, the censorship
> was inappropriate. They're assholes, plain and simple.