[conspire] OT freekenneth.com Urgent. Please help. Thanks.

[Rick Moen]

Quoting john_re (john_re at fastmail.us):

> Here is an urgent situation that enables you to do some good in this
> world.

Inappropriate posting, in my view, and your "OT" isn't sufficient to
excuse it.  But you knew that in advance.


<hat="listadmin">
John, I'm willing to tolerate this sort of thing once in a long while, 
so I'm not annoyed -- but I don't want to see another non-Linux politics
advocacy posting from you, of any kind, until year 2008.  We'll figure
out, at that point, how frequently will be considered excessively
annoying.

There is no posted rule for "conspire" requiring this, and there won't 
be (nor, of course, will any undisclosed rule be applied).  It's really
just a matter of common sense and courtesy.

That is, permit all online forums indulge some percentage of traffic
being off-topic digressions, and they tend to be somewhere between
welcome and indulgently tolerated to the extent they're some combination
of brief, infrequent, humourous, non-annoying, and non-contentious.
Blitzing Linux mailing lists with political advocacy posts fails several
of those tests.  Basically, John, you're behaving like an ass, and
abusing our tolerance.  Not smart.

No listadmin (or, well, none I'd respect) _wants_ to have to post rules
regulating offtopic behaviour, as that would tend to devolve to (or at 
least be perceived as) heavy-handed thuggery.  For one thing, we expect
people to show a bit of perspective and common sense, without needing to
be required to do so.

Meanwhile, as listadmin, I hereby convey my regrets to everyone else
annoyed by this intrusion.  IMPORTANT:  If any subscriber needs help
crafting a killfile rule, having decided to filter out future postings
from John Regan's address, ask me off-list, and I'll try to help.  
Please do _not_ rise to John's bait, on-list:  Filter him before 
considering that.  (That is not an order, but is a request.)
</hat>


> Form where you can send the message:

(For context:  John attempted to post this stuff earlier, and found he
was unable to, because his inital text triggered my MTA's anti-chain-letter
filters.  He complained to me, offlist, asking help getting his mail
through -- and I explained that, no, my filters were working exactly as
intended, and he should understand that his posting would be, in my view,
completely inappropriate for _any_ LUG technical mailing list.  That
was a week or so ago.  He has apparently revised his text to evade that
filter -- without heeding my warning about appropriateness.  One notes, 
in addition -- see above quoted line -- that it's still essentially a
chain letter.)