[tde-users] Re: [OT] Spam

On Wednesday 28 October 2020 07:41:17 Gene Heskett via tde-users wrote: And I believe that you've hit the crux of the matter, Gene. Some people -- forgive my generalizations, but they're probably pretty close -- have jobs, and must deal with technical issues as part of their work. As such, anything that veers more than a few inches off-topic, or which is not strictly business, or which annoys them for other reasons: well, they must regard our chit-chat not only as a waste of their time, but indeed as obstacles to whatever they are trying to do. Gene, being retired and living alone now, enjoys the same things that irritate others on the list. There are about half a dozen, maybe a dozen of us, who tend to get into these off-topic threads, which happen gradually at first, but then grow exponentially, like a snowball effect. I think it's that we get a few kicks out of one another, but not enough that we want to chat on a regular basis, nor to get too deeply into one another's lives. And I myself probably spend more time on the list at present, but only because I still have yet to recover data from that hard drive, which contains about 40 years' of research, my entire digital library, field research, interviews, along with everything I ever wrote or published since about the year 1975. My plans for this winter (once I had got my new printer) were to hole up here like a total hermit, and bring my materials together into some kind of readable form. And then my hard drive crashed, and so far I've been stuck, and just spinning wheels. If I could only recover my data, then would only rarely see me here, as I do have better things to do with my time; only I cannot do them just yet. By the way, when one threatens (whether idly or "for real") to unsubscribe from the mailing list, then you are being passive-aggressive: if we won't play the game like you demand, you'll go home. But I don't want things to be this way. I would really like everybody just to get along, and it seems to me that we spend more time discussing this same ongoing problem than we do in trying to solve it. If you aren't going to recommend a solution, then you are just kvetch-kvetch-kvetching again. Don't worry, I won't live for ever; I may not even make it more than another year or two, unless things change dramatically for the better. And I do have something I want to accomplish yet before that time comes. If I didn't need to use a computer to finish this work, then I would never have gone online, never have joined a mailing list, and the world would be a better place As it is, we are stuck with one another, and I suggest that we try to come up with reasonable, livable solutions, rather than complaining and wishing for more rules, more control my moderators, censoring or filtering or whatever other draconian measures some would envision, to try to control what they regard as chaos, and therefore, counterproductive or negative. (Some of us rather enjoy chaos.) I believe that Slavek, among others, has expressed a wish that we maintain a friendly and open atmosphere in the mailing list. On the other hand, we all know that the conversations go so far off-topic that we might as well be a social network sometimes. And this reminds me: I, and others, have mentioned something about creating a forum, where we could start threads on whatever we wanted, even (for example) archaeological discoveries in London's underground. Then we could keep the mailing list pure and uncluttered by off-topic stuff, which, one hopes, might keep the strictly-business types content. If anybody else has any actual recommendations or suggestions, then I think that now would be the time to come forward. Merely wishing for other people to shut up or quit the list, or threatening to quit the list oneself: this is not constructive or useful at all. And by the way, we waste far more time on these discussions than we do in occasional chit-chat. Bill