On 18/07/17 10:57, Basil Chupin wrote:
- Having said the above, everyone on this list treats each other as a
friend and there will always be some jovial banter between people and this should be allowed and not suppressed. As in the past, people participating in this list keep others in check either privately or in public by posting here some comment about behaviour. (Patrick, are you reading? :-).) I would personally hate to see this list turn into one which Ubuntu had and which was Moderated to such a degree that noone was able to say anything which did not deal directly with a technical issue. In the end that technical list was shut down in the manner that Richard suggested may happen to this list.
That was my experience (that I mentioned in the email that started this subthread). Banning off-topic turned that list "dull as ditchwater".
I think we have to tolerate some off-topic in order to keep the list healthy and lively. BUT.
You do need some moderation to keep it on track, and history says that heavy-handed moderation is probably better than none. The moderation on Groklaw was very heavy-handed on occasion, but the result was an extremely popular blog.
If the openSUSE board here have said "enough is enough" then we need to be adult enough to accept it, and back them, otherwise our nice little playground is likely to turn into a cess-pit :-(
It's the board's list, they're putting in the resources, and in the immortal words of Free Software, "if you don't like it, fork it and do it yourself!"
Cheers, Wol