Hey, some of you, cut it out!--God damn it, please

[Greg Montalbano]

Andrew, in response to Peter:

> This is not a news group where fresh-faced newbies with ids like
>`Kool Dude' (kooldude at asswipe.com) have carte blanche to display the
>depths of inanity of which they are capable 

Ow! Good one, Andrew (but am I being paranoid in feeling like it's directed
at me?).

(much as it may seem like
>that at times). It is a specialist interest group populated by
>relatively mature, responsible and literate people who are quite
>capable of behaving responsibily so long as they know how to do so.
>So, rather than adopting the apocalyptic apres-moi-le-deluge stance
>displayed above perhaps you could do your best to shoulder some of
>that responsibility and think before you stuff endless reams of crap
>into other people's mailboxes. The more you hold off and think before
>posting, the more focussed you make your mail notes, the better the
>example you set other posters, then the longer we can all continue to
>make good use this list as a resource.

This would be as good a place as any to comment on the importance of list
etiquette -- someone recently remarked on their surprise at some of the
valid comments & criticisms in JS's posts;  I've missed out on these, having
been turned off by the endlessly argumentative & self-referential nature of
his previous notes, eventually nuking them all unread.  I guess what I'm
getting at here is that if you get into routine babble, invective, assholery
of any sort, people will screen you out and your brilliant bon mots will be
lost to civilization (which needs them badly).

The purpose of this all is supposed to be communication -- difficult to
accomplish if you make it impossible for anyone to listen to you.