OT: Handling Politics the plug-discuss way?

[keith smith]

I think the single thing that impressed me about you was your visiting the state legislature.  

When I get settled in in Phoenix I hope to visit the state legislature and see what is going on first hand.

------------------------
Keith Smith


--- On Sun, 8/2/09, Joshua Zeidner <jjzeidner at gmail.com> wrote:

> From: Joshua Zeidner <jjzeidner at gmail.com>
> Subject: Re: OT: Handling Politics the plug-discuss way?
> To: phrkonaleash at gmail.com, "Main PLUG discussion list" <plug-discuss at lists.plug.phoenix.az.us>
> Date: Sunday, August 2, 2009, 10:35 PM
>  I think youre making mountains out
> of molehills here... one of these
> heated political discussions happens on average once a
> month (if
> that).  I think it adds to the variety and diversity
> on this list.  It
> would appear that these discussions compel new
> participants, which is
> a good thing for the list.  The level of articulation
> for some of
> these discussions is very high- its not just some crude
> flame war.  I
> don't think the noise is so much a problem as the ideas
> presented or
> perhaps vendettas against participants.  I mean god, a
> few extra
> emails in your inbox and the world is coming to an
> end?  get over it.
> 
>   Looking over some of my thoughts ... sorry if I come
> off as
> complaining about AZ.  Im just pointing out some of my
> observations.
> On the whole, I like it here- and my commitments to this
> state have
> recently gone up a bit.  This is the month however
> when I hear
> everyone say they hate it here... give it another month or
> two and its
> back to happy happy arizonans... that is once we get this
> financial
> crisis sorted out.
> 
>   have a good week,
> 
>    -jmz
> 
> On Sun, Aug 2, 2009 at 10:20 PM, Ryan Rix<phrkonaleash at gmail.com>
> wrote:
> > Group,
> >
> > Are these political discussions (examples: the second
> half of Re: Guess
> > What, when I relabelled unsuccesfully, and whatever
> happened to the
> > Geeky/entrepreneurial thread) detracting from the
> point of this list (which
> > is to discuss GNU/Linux and Free Software, and not
> necessarily to discuss
> > the economy, the government, or conspiracies about
> whether or not our duly
> > elected President was an American or not) and in
> general daunting for people
> > who may be new listers/Linuxers?
> >
> > Hans agrees with me (via a quick discussion in the IRC
> channel) that these
> > discussions in general detract from the list, and make
> the non-political-
> > flame-war discussions less active/less... what is the
> word... visible, so I
> > think that something should be done, or at least a
> discussion should take
> > place about it.
> >
> > I see a few options:
> > 1) We leave it here and do nothing. Most email clients
> have the ability to
> > filter on subject/topic of a discussion, so those who
> didn't want to
> > see/deal with/get drug into these discussions could
> easily filter them out.
> > We could create a new topic heading, like we have for
> OT: (politics: or
> > something, when someone posts something politically
> kinda sorta related),
> > allowing those who want to take part in these
> discussions to do so, while
> > the others are safely shielded from them. The problem
> with this is that new
> > users will still see these discusions taking place,
> which could, imo be very
> > detrimental to their joining this community/getting
> the help with a question
> > they may need/just feeling comfortable. But of course,
> this is easy enough
> > to do and leaves the work for the users who don't like
> said discussions to
> > take care of.
> >
> > 2) Create another list for these mails. The problem
> with this idea is that
> > (imo) mailman has no easy way to control WHERE
> messages between two
> > different lists go, so I think that it could be hard
> to transition between
> > the two lists when a discussion does eventually go
> OT-Political. This would
> > rely mostly on the good will and rememberance of the
> posters, which in the
> > experience of the last few OT-Political threads has
> given me the impression
> > that this will NOT work.
> >
> > 3) We moderate OT threads. My personal opinion is that
> the best way to keep
> > flame wars down is to moderate. Not so much eliminate
> the posts that may
> > incite these political discussions but to put a long
> enough delay on the
> > posts that it hampers the quick
> reply-reply-reply-reply that usually is what
> > completely derails thoughtful discussion. If users are
> given the instant
> > chance to write a quick retort to a discussion and
> have that instantly
> > posted to a hundred people who may or may not have the
> same idealogy
> > basically causes a thread to go haywire in a matter of
> hours. With a
> > sufficient delay in these posts being sent to the
> group, this haywiring can
> > be pushed out to a day or two, hopefully alleviating
> any flame wars which
> > may develop. Most of the wars that take place on p-d
> are about a day or two
> > long at most anyways.
> >
> > 4) We forbid it. I think that this is the WORST
> option, but an option
> > nonetheless. I am not in favor of censorship at all,
> but if things get bad
> > enough we could do this. It would probably have to
> fall back to #3.
> >
> > My personal preference is #3, but that gives someone
> an extra job, and I
> > don't think Hans should have to do it himself. A board
> of moderators be
> > elected perhaps? Is there any way to crowdsource it?
> If this was a forum
> > rather than a mailing list (which I don't support at
> all!) we could add a
> > score/rating system, but I don't think that this is
> possible via e-mail.
> >
> > Thanks and best,
> > Ryan Rix
> >
> > --
> > ---
> > Ryan Rix
> > (623)-826-0051
> >
> > * LG loves czech girls.
> > <vincent> LG: do they have additional
> interesting "features" other girls
> > don't have? ;)
> >        -- #Debian
> >
> > http://hackersramblings.wordpress.com |
> http://twitter.com/phrkonaleash
> > XMPP: phrkonaleash at gmail.com
>          | MSN: phrkonaleash at yahoo.com
> > AIM:  phrkonaleash                    |
> Yahoo: phrkonaleash
> > IRC:  PhrkOnLsh at irc.freenode.net/#srcedit,#teensonlinux,#plugaz
> and
> >      countless other FOSS channels.
> >
> >
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