John Levine writes: > 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. Maybe it's time to heed the arguments instead of just complaining about them. I do, and it works well for me; I'm never bothered by "clouds of irrelevant smoke" on any list, even though most lists constantly have such clouds drifting about. Of course, in practice, many people refuse to heed these arguments because they simply cannot tolerate the thought of anyone being allowed to say or write anything that they themselves find objectionable. Filtering the unwanted traffic isn't enough for them; they want to prevent the whole world from seeing it. They are irritated not only by the traffic itself, but also by the thought that anyone else might be able to see that traffic. So they crusade for constant censorship of every expression of which they don't personally approve. And eventually they make as much or more noise than the people whom they find so objectionable, ironically. Eventually you end up with multiple groups on a list: those who irritate others, those who want to censor the ones they find irritating, and--sometimes--a minority of people who are grown-up enough to stay out of both of these groups and continue their normal work, cheerfully ignoring the children at play on the list. > When this happens, I've only ever seen two possible outcomes. Either > the smoke generators are ejected, or the productive members leave. There's a third possible outcome: The productive members are smart, they ignore the smoke, and they continue to work efficiently. But the productive members do have to be _smart_, and unfortunately that's more the exception than the rule, even on lists where the members like to believe themselves smart. _______________________________________________ Ietf@xxxxxxxx https://www1.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf