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Thanks, Alan for the analysis.  It brings some much-needed clarity to the issue.

I suspect the recent concern over off-topic posts rests with the political, divisive nature of the most recent major OT thread.  I apologize for the extent to which my own posts may have extended that thread on-list.  I've since taken all discussion of that thread off-list, and I expect to do so more quickly with OT posts in the future.

I agree with Alan that this is an excellent list, and we generally do a good job of keeping the discussion on-topic (or very nearly so).

==Joseph++

Alan Dayley wrote:
> Brief Analysis
> 
> Time frame: Roughly one week from "RE: IPCop v1.4.5 Configuration"
> 5/3/2005 3:59AM to "Re: Politics was Re: OT: Let's hear it for the
> activist judges!" 5/9/2005 8:43 PM (The last message before I started this
> thread.
> 
> Classification basis: Just counting the subject field to classify message
> as "on" or "off" topic.
> 
> Total emails: 190, 100%
> On: 123, 65%
> Off (FS, hardware only or computer related, etc.): 34, 18%
> Off: 33, 17%
> 
> (Percentages rounded.  Disagreement over "on" or "off" status may exsist,
> especially for the "Off but computer related" catagory.  This is just a
> quick judgment call on my part based on stated subject.)
> 
> OK.  That was one week before the first "stop OT posts" requests came in. 
> OT posts were significant ( > 15% ) for some time prior to that.  I think
> that shows that the list is highly tolerant of OT posts since it took a
> while before any moderating comments were posted.  This is good.
> 
> I am not advocating a strict policy.  I don't think moderation will happen
> (time and spam) so a strict policy would not be enforced anyway.  I like
> brief OT conversations and occasionally start them myself.
> 
> I am advocating a reasonable maintainance of the purpose of the
> plug-discuss list.  That is "a mailing list that you can join to ask or
> answer questions, and talk about linux stuff."  Being that it is a Linux
> User Group, the topic is Linux and things related to it.
> 
> This email list is one of The BEST on the internet.  I have looked and
> found very few to compare with the insights, knowledge, responsiveness and
> tolerance that members of this list create.  We can be proud of that. 
> Let's just keep it up!
> 
> Alan
> 
> 
> 
> 
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