Steven D'Aprano via tde-users wrote:

> I think that if this was a brand new group, not just a migration from
> one list to another, we could be a bit stricter about off-topic emails.
> But it's a small community, with not many regular participants. There is
> a lot of institutional knowledge held by the regulars and if the cost of
> keeping them around is to put up with a bit of off-topic discussion and
> their inability to trim pages and pages of quoted text onto the eighth
> or tenth generation "> > > > > > > > > > blah blah blah" then so be it.

I also enjoy the OT freedom here and in other groups for the simple reason
that discussing with people that have same interest feels better.

I usually read the headlines and follow the topic until I get bored - this
may happend by the 10th reply by Gene :D. When I don't have time or I am
not interested I just ignore and mark as read.
There is also no way to enforce rules besides the rules that are
established.

And regarding unsubscribing - everybody is free to subscribe and
unsubscribe. There is no need to put it on the wall.

And what does working at the university has to do with the TDE user list, I
also do not understand.
I am honestly thankful that I do not work at a university - don't understand
me wrong I have two degrees and most of my friends have also a degree but
in the past 20+some years universities degraded to below zero in some
extent.

@Janek - free your mind and enjoy the "stupidity" of day-to-day life. I
think no one here uses facebook or similar. Sometimes I have the feeling I
am of the younger generation being 47. 
You can enjoy and relax - it is much better than Netflix or whatever story
you find out there. The thing I enjoy more are the life stories of people I
know. I was considering extracting all the personal postings of Gene and
putting them together for his next birthday, but I never have time for
that :D. It is a great story he has to tell and I am thankful that no
moderator censored that.