[LinuxUsers] Creating a structure for SocalLinux.org - asking all members to read

[David Kaiser]

I was either on the road, or in Corona or Riverside all day - so
apologies for getting back home and to this e-mail so late.

1) yes - someone called me and in the conversation made comments like: 
"this is a food fight" and "why is this public?"

2) yes - I am the person of liability for the domain name and the server
operations for socallinux.org - I don't want to deal with any record
label, movie studio or book publisher for links that our system has
republished.  I don't have all the answers on short url's - but the
message to everyone should be clear - you know what you are posting and
you need to make a call as to if it is legal - or as my alter ego says:

     "if it's not legit, don't post it"

3) yes - we are trying to improve our public image.  we used to work hard
to have meetings, offer educational value, insightful presentations on a
variety of subjects and from a number of guest speakers.  now we have
food fights that are really private messages between a very select few. 
this will change.  we'll get back to good meetings and topics this year.



On 1/3/2010, "Roger E. Rustad, Jr." <roger.rustad at gmail.com> wrote:

>On a somewhat serious note, it sounds like we need a separate "collision
>domain" where the soi-disant "asinine" chatter can flow a bit more freely.
>
>I'm totally cool with that, as this listserv is public facing.  Set up back
>channels, and chances are that this list will improve its noise ratio.
>
>Reading between the lines (my fuzzy feeling), it sounds like we have one or
>more of the following problems:
>
>(1) someone has complained about the SNR ratio
>(2) we are trying to limit our liability
>(3) we are trying to improve our public image
>
>(1) can be solved by talking to people offline. Most of the time, people are
>cool the leader says, "Look, you overstepped your bounds.  Let's play
>nicely."  It's been my experience that people are cool about this most of
>the time, especially when you approach them right.
>(2) can be solved by having people agree that they are 100% responsible for
>their own comments.
>(3) well...there are always "free radicals" in any group (just look at
>Stallman and the likes), and it's my opinion that they contribute greatly to
>the ecosystem, even when they are annoying.  In my opinion, sometimes you
>just gotta say, "People here do not necessarily represent the group's
>opinion," and leave it at that.