Date: Fri, 22 Aug 97 21:49 PDT From: Bruce Perens <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
[...] As you can see, Dave hasn't removed his sorry excuse for dialog from debian-user. What do you suggest I do, guys? I think the suggestion to develop a charter for this list is the correct one. The charter should specify that the list is specifically for technical discussions, and that other discussions, including the political discussions that are the current problem, are out of place here. Several people have already said this, and it sounds very sensible to me. The charter should distinguish between brief off-topic discussions, e.g. asking how to pronounce "Linus", and extended flame wars (no example necessary, sadly). The charter should also specify what happens to people who refuse to cooperate; I favor expulsion as the punishment. I don't see anything else that makes much sense. I agree with the person who said that censorship is worse than expulsion, and is to be avoided. I think that expelling someone without a charter in place is a bad precedent, and can be avoided by creating the charter. The effect is the same, but it is always better to have a public policy that the members of the group agree upon. There has also been a suggestion that we form an alternate list specifically for political or other non-technical discussions. This seems plausible, but I wonder how many people would bother subscribing to it. After all, this isn't usenet, and from what I've seen on this list prior to the present mess, Debian people mostly have better things to do with their time. In any case, the effort involved to set up a mailing list is small, so it does little harm. -- TO UNSUBSCRIBE FROM THIS MAILING LIST: e-mail the word "unsubscribe" to [EMAIL PROTECTED] . Trouble? e-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] .
