Date   : Mon, 22 Nov 2010 00:49:17 +0100
From   : kortink@... (John Kortink)
Subject: Ban off-topic posts

On Sun, 21 Nov 2010 23:00:17 +0000, Michael Firth <mfirth@...>
wrote:

>[...]
>
>The two big problems for me with an "off topic ban" are firstly (as 
>others have said) who decides what is on topic and what is off topic - 
>are Archimedes and RiscOS discussions allowed? Mention of vintage 
>computer festival reviews that don't explicitly mention the BBC Micro?

There is certainly no doubt about what is /completely/ off-topic.
That would cut about 80% of all the waffle already.

Even beyond that, the distinction is pretty clear cut, as far as
I'm concerned.

>If you don't have a draconian ban then you don't have to worry "can I 
>post this here without it being incorrect". The second issue is who 
>polices any voilations, and what the punishment would be - would you 
>really throw people off the list for one off topic posting?

No, but a moderator could simply mark the thread as off-topic and
let that be understood to mean that it ends there.

>[...]
>
>While I agree that a list that is entirely off topic will no longer have 
>a purpose, a list that has only one or two posts per week (at most) will 
>likely die too.
>
>If you look at the postings here over the last few weeks, there have 
>been only one or two certainly on topic threads

Maybe that's precisely because there are so many off-topic
ones. It puts people off.

Any way you turn it, off-topic threads are detrimental to
the mailing list.


John Kortink

-- 

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