Please stop

[Vaughn Treude]

Micah DesJardins wrote:
> Dear PLUGers,
> 
> I've sat back. I've been patient and quiet. I have not put forward my
> political or religious beliefs.  I have refrained from name calling,
> slander, and prophecies of doom and/or salvation.  This conversation
> has spilled over into half a dozen threads and is neither fruitful nor
> relevant to Linux/Unix or Open Source.  We need to remember why we are
> here in the first place: To share our enthusiasm and interest for
> Linux and Open Source in general.  There are a lot of intelligent and
> generous people who frequent this list and I would hate to lose out on
> their guidance and experience because we could not see past our
> differences and remember our similarities.  Your religious beliefs are
> your business as are your political views.  If I wanted to discuss
> either with you, I would have joined a political / religious mailing
> list.  Please be respectful of one another.  I don't have a problem
> with people disagreeing.  The beauty of a difference of opinion is
> that both parties have the opportunity to look at something in a way
> they had not previously considered.  Whether either party chooses to
> do so isn't so much important.  There is however an art to
> constructive difference of opinion.  I'd like to think that name
> calling, slander, and personal abuse have no place on this list.   My
> issue is that you have taken things so far afield that there's really
> no point in reading PLUG if I have to wade through 80+ posts on things
> I don't care about to get to the 5 things I have interest in.  Please
> keep PLUG Geeky, and leave your political and religious issues at the
> door.
> 

I'll second that. I checked my email today, seeing 300+ messages, and 
thought, "woah, my spam filter died!" I was surprised to see that well 
over a hundred of them were PLUG.
I hate to see PLUG turning into a politico-religious brawl. There are a 
lot of really good political sites where you can rant. One such good one 
is nolanchart.com, whose name comes from David Nolan, one of the 
founders of the Libertarian Party. All viewpoints are welcome, and it's 
easy to start a column there, providing you agree to a few rules, such 
as not using profanity or personal insults. Kind of a quaint notion 
these days, but you can still express any conceivable opinion. It just 
got to the point, with all the total-BS political emails I was getting, 
that I felt I had to express my indignation, without necessarily pissing 
off the friends and colleagues who were sending me that nonsense in the 
first place. The only downside is I'm definitely on the DHS "dangerous 
radical" list now, if I wasn't already on it. :-)

Vaughn


> Thanks,
> 
> Micah DesJardins
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