Every so often a bit of true genius is revealed! Thanks Vince! PeterB On Thursday 22 January 2004 02:24 pm, Vince Littler wrote:
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@suse.com 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.
-- -- Proud to use SuSE Linux, since 5.2 Loving using SuSE Linux 8.2 MyBlog http://vancampen.org/blog/ Nothing is as perfect as a Cultured Diamond There was never any Blood on a Cultured Diamond --