>This is NOT the United States Senate and House of Representatives. >You may think that filibustering is normal and appreciated and >democratic. It is not. This is the core of the issue. The point of this forum is to get work done. The rules for participation are not hard to figure out, and are not hard to abide by. You can be quite passionate and even fairly obnoxious and not come anywhere close to the point where anyone would suggest banning you. This isn't an issue of free speech. There are a million places on the Net open to anyone who wants to say anything. The issue is maintaining an environment where the vast majority of members who want to get work done can do so. I cannot tell you how many lists I've been on that have been in exactly our situation, paralyzed by one or two people who skate along the edge of being kicked off, choking the list with clouds of irrelevant smoke. There's always the same arguments, if we were disciplined enough to ignore the noise, it wouldn't matter, everyone has a right to say something, it's about personalities rather than substance, etc., etc. You all know them as well as I do. When this happens, I've only ever seen two possible outcomes. Either the smoke generators are ejected, or the productive members leave. R's, John _______________________________________________ Ietf@xxxxxxxx https://www1.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf