Dave Cinege and Paul Wade
Date: Fri, 22 Aug 97 21:49 PDT
From: Bruce Perens <bruce@debian.org>
[...]
As you can see, Dave hasn't removed his sorry excuse for dialog from
debian-user. What do you suggest I do, guys?
I think the suggestion to develop a charter for this list is the
correct one. The charter should specify that the list is specifically
for technical discussions, and that other discussions, including the
political discussions that are the current problem, are out of place
here. Several people have already said this, and it sounds very
sensible to me.
The charter should distinguish between brief off-topic discussions,
e.g. asking how to pronounce "Linus", and extended flame wars (no
example necessary, sadly).
The charter should also specify what happens to people who refuse to
cooperate; I favor expulsion as the punishment. I don't see anything
else that makes much sense. I agree with the person who said that
censorship is worse than expulsion, and is to be avoided.
I think that expelling someone without a charter in place is a bad
precedent, and can be avoided by creating the charter. The effect is
the same, but it is always better to have a public policy that the
members of the group agree upon.
There has also been a suggestion that we form an alternate list
specifically for political or other non-technical discussions. This
seems plausible, but I wonder how many people would bother subscribing
to it. After all, this isn't usenet, and from what I've seen on this
list prior to the present mess, Debian people mostly have better
things to do with their time. In any case, the effort involved to set
up a mailing list is small, so it does little harm.
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