On Tue, Nov 17, 2015 at 12:23:18AM +0000, Lisi Reisz wrote:
> On Monday 16 November 2015 23:27:20 Kate Draven wrote:
> > This comes to a full stop now.
> 
> a) You started this.
> b)  Whilst I entirely agree that this has gone in my opinion too far, I really 
> feel that you cannot issue orders in this way.

Especially when, according to the timestamps on the emails, 40 seconds 
later you (Kate) replied to another political email to agree. It 
certainly comes across as hypocritical and bossy.

I think that only one person on this mailing list can issue orders about 
what is and what is not allowed, and that is the list owner, Tim.

The rest of us can just say... please, enough is enough. This is not a 
general discussion forum for political matters. Please stop. (That's a 
request, not a demand.)

As for Michael, who wrote in another email to complain about people 
contacting him off-list, I think Michael's demand that people keep 
off-topic discussions about politics on this mailing list is 
*completely* wrong and harmful.

Two or three messages in the heat of the moment may be understandable 
and forgivable, but there comes a time where we as a community should 
bite our lips (or sit on our typing hands) and stop. There are plenty of 
other forums to debate and argue the political situation (Facebook, 
Reddit, Twitter, etc.), please take it there.

If Michael wishes to *request* that people don't contact him off-list, 
that is one thing. (Of course, people are free to ignore his wishes, 
just as he is free to delete their emails.) But to insist that people 
take *private* and *off-topic* messages public, well, I consider that 
far more rude and harmful to this community than the things that Michael 
was complaining about. After all, he is free to just ignore any 
aggressive or disagreeable private messages, but (unless he is the list 
owner) I think that he is out of line in encouraging others to pollute 
this list with off-topic messages. Especially disruptive and angry 
messages about politics.

If anyone (other than Tim) wishes to disagree (or even agree) with me, 
please take your off-topic and/or political messages to private mail. I 
promise to read them. I don't promise to reply (that depends on how 
polite you are).

Let's please keep it civil and on-topic (well, mostly on-topic) here.


Thank you,



Steve