# crackdown 2.0 *The Urth list — 12 messages, 7 voices, 07 Jun 2010* > Exported from an unofficial mirror of a public mailing list. Copyright > in each message remains with the person who wrote it. > Email addresses are obscured as `user at host`, the form the original > archive published. This file was rebuilt from parsed fields rather than > retained headers, so it is faithful in content but not byte-exact. --- ### Ranjit Bhatnagar *07 Jun 2010, 20:43* The urth list is getting way too busy these days, so I'm gonna lay down the law again. Please send any comments or complaints directly to me rather than to the list. 1. Please stick to the core mission of the list, which is discussion that *directly* relates to Gene Wolfe's fiction (with occasional diversions for notable events in the sci-fi and literary worlds). Religion in general and atheism in general are not suitable topics. 2. I'm setting an informal goal of no more than approximately five messages per person per day. It's ok to go over five now and then, but don't feel like you need to use all five every day, either. I'm not going to bother counting individual's messages, but I'm hoping that we'll get slower-paced and more focused discussions. If this doesn't slow the list down enough, I'll make it a technical restriction, which will be much more annoying for everyone. We'll see how it goes. - Ranjit --- ### Gwern Branwen *07 Jun 2010, 21:06 · in reply to Ranjit Bhatnagar* > On Mon, Jun 7, 2010 at 4:43 PM, Ranjit Bhatnagar wrote: > The urth list is getting way too busy these days, so I'm gonna lay > down the law again. ?Please send any comments or complaints directly > to me rather than to the list. > > 1. Please stick to the core mission of the list, which is discussion > that *directly* relates to Gene Wolfe's fiction (with occasional > diversions for notable events in the sci-fi and literary worlds). > Religion in general and atheism in general are not suitable topics. > > 2. I'm setting an informal goal of no more than approximately five > messages per person per day. — It's ok to go over five now and then, > but don't feel like you need to use all five every day, either. ?I'm > not going to bother counting individual's messages, but I'm hoping > that we'll get slower-paced and more focused discussions. ?If this > doesn't slow the list down enough, I'll make it a technical > restriction, which will be much more annoying for everyone. ?We'll see > how it goes. > > - Ranjit I approve of these restrictions. I would also like to add a third suggestion: *please stop changing subjects*! I try not to complain but merely 'mute' or 'killfile' threads I find dull or stupid (like a great many in the past few weeks), but I cannot do this if people keep changing the subjects - the emails with modified subjects will land right in my inbox, and like a rat on an intermittent reinforcement schedule, I will read it to see whether something interesting has been said. ``` gwern ``` --- ### Ranjit Bhatnagar *08 Jun 2010, 02:37 · in reply to Gwern Branwen* > On Mon, Jun 7, 2010 at 5:06 PM, Gwern Branwen wrote: > I would also like to add a third suggestion: *please stop changing subjects*! > > I try not to complain but merely 'mute' or 'killfile' threads I find > dull or stupid (like a great many in the past few weeks), but I cannot > do this if people keep changing the subjects - the emails with > modified subjects will land right in my inbox, and like a rat on an > intermittent reinforcement schedule, I will read it to see whether > something interesting has been said. This is also officially encouraged behavior. Think of it as a bureaucratic filing system - even if the topic of discussion drifts, keeping the subject the same helps keep the thread of thought together. Also, if you have a lot of related messages to reply to, I encourage you to combine all your replies into one message, digest-style. - ranjit --- ### Jeff Wilson *08 Jun 2010, 04:56 · in reply to Ranjit Bhatnagar* > On 6/7/2010 9:37 PM, Ranjit Bhatnagar wrote: > On Mon, Jun 7, 2010 at 5:06 PM, Gwern Branwen wrote: >> I would also like to add a third suggestion: *please stop changing subjects*! >> >> I try not to complain but merely 'mute' or 'killfile' threads I find >> dull or stupid (like a great many in the past few weeks), but I cannot >> do this if people keep changing the subjects - the emails with >> modified subjects will land right in my inbox, and like a rat on an >> intermittent reinforcement schedule, I will read it to see whether >> something interesting has been said. I do not feel it right for you to expect everyone else to modify their behavior to suit your reading preferences. > This is also officially encouraged behavior. Think of it as a > bureaucratic filing system - even if the topic of discussion drifts, > keeping the subject the same helps keep the thread of thought > together. Wait a minute - just two weeks ago you said "It's a good idea to edit the subject line of a discussion to reflect the topic being discussed" - which is it? ``` Jeff Wilson - jwilson at io.com IEEE Student Chapter Blog at < http://ieeetamut.org > ``` --- ### Gwern Branwen *08 Jun 2010, 15:21 · in reply to Jeff Wilson* > On Tue, Jun 8, 2010 at 12:56 AM, Jeff Wilson wrote: > On 6/7/2010 9:37 PM, Ranjit Bhatnagar wrote: >> On Mon, Jun 7, 2010 at 5:06 PM, Gwern Branwen ?wrote: >>> I would also like to add a third suggestion: *please stop changing >>> subjects*! >>> >>> I try not to complain but merely 'mute' or 'killfile' threads I find >>> dull or stupid (like a great many in the past few weeks), but I cannot >>> do this if people keep changing the subjects - the emails with >>> modified subjects will land right in my inbox, and like a rat on an >>> intermittent reinforcement schedule, I will read it to see whether >>> something interesting has been said. > I do not feel it right for you to expect everyone else to modify their > behavior to suit your reading preferences. I see. Will you be extending your little anarchist free speech crusade to the *entirety* of netiquette? Or just the parts that people bring up? I ask for subject changes to match genuine topic changes precisely so other people do not have to change what they write, to allow me to opt out. If they don't, then I'm forced to either unsubscribe entirely, or do my best to destroy each offending thread. I don't want to do either. >> This is also officially encouraged behavior. “Think of it as a >> bureaucratic filing system - even if the topic of discussion drifts, >> keeping the subject the same helps keep the thread of thought >> together. > Wait a minute - just two weeks ago you said "It's a good idea to edit the > subject line of a discussion to reflect the topic being discussed" - which > is it” There's nothing inconsistent here, except in your head. I asked you offlist to look at the list of threads for just June and tell me whether you thought each and every one was a genuine subject edit in response to a topic change. You didn't. So I'll provide an example from http://lists.urth.net/pipermail/urth-urth.net/2010-June/thread.html What topic change, pray tell, is signaled by switching from 'travelling north' to 'Urth Digest, Vol 70, Issue 15'? ``` gwern ``` --- ### Dan'l Danehy-Oakes *08 Jun 2010, 15:34 · in reply to Gwern Branwen* > On Tue, Jun 8, 2010 at 8:21 AM, Gwern Branwen wrote: > What topic change, pray tell, is signaled by switching from > 'travelling north' to 'Urth Digest, Vol 70, Issue 15'? In fairness, for those who receive the list as a digest, that is the form of the subject header they get. They would have to change the subject header in order to keep it the same, so to speak. ``` Dan'l Danehy-Oakes ``` --- ### brunians at brunians.org *08 Jun 2010, 16:16 · in reply to Gwern Branwen* Ranjit owns the list. The owner makes the rules. This is not a democracy. . > On Tue, Jun 8, 2010 at 12:56 AM, Jeff Wilson wrote: >> On 6/7/2010 9:37 PM, Ranjit Bhatnagar wrote: >>> On Mon, Jun 7, 2010 at 5:06 PM, Gwern Branwen >>> ??wrote: >>>> I would also like to add a third suggestion: *please stop changing >>>> subjects*! >>>> >>>> I try not to complain but merely 'mute' or 'killfile' threads I find >>>> dull or stupid (like a great many in the past few weeks), but I cannot >>>> do this if people keep changing the subjects - the emails with >>>> modified subjects will land right in my inbox, and like a rat on an >>>> intermittent reinforcement schedule, I will read it to see whether >>>> something interesting has been said. >> I do not feel it right for you to expect everyone else to modify their >> behavior to suit your reading preferences. > I see. Will you be extending your little anarchist free speech crusade > to the *entirety* of netiquette? Or just the parts that people bring > up? > > I ask for subject changes to match genuine topic changes precisely so > other people do not have to change what they write, to allow me to opt > out. If they don't, then I'm forced to either unsubscribe entirely, or > do my best to destroy each offending thread. I don't want to do > either. >>> This is also officially encouraged behavior. ??Think of it as a >>> bureaucratic filing system - even if the topic of discussion drifts, >>> keeping the subject the same helps keep the thread of thought >>> together. >> Wait a minute - just two weeks ago you said "It's a good idea to edit >> the >> subject line of a discussion to reflect the topic being discussed" - >> which >> is it? > There's nothing inconsistent here, except in your head. > > I asked you offlist to look at the list of threads for just June and > tell me whether you thought each and every one was a genuine subject > edit in response to a topic change. You didn't. So I'll provide an > example from > http://lists.urth.net/pipermail/urth-urth.net/2010-June/thread.html > > What topic change, pray tell, is signaled by switching from > 'travelling north' to 'Urth Digest, Vol 70, Issue 15'? > > -- > gwern > _______________________________________________ --- ### Jeff Wilson *09 Jun 2010, 04:11 · in reply to Gwern Branwen* > On 6/8/2010 10:21 AM, Gwern Branwen wrote: > On Tue, Jun 8, 2010 at 12:56 AM, Jeff Wilson wrote: >> I do not feel it right for you to expect everyone else to modify their >> behavior to suit your reading preferences. > I see. Will you be extending your little anarchist free speech crusade > to the *entirety* of netiquette? Or just the parts that people bring > up? Yes, the pro-moderation anarchist, that's me. >>> This is also officially encouraged behavior. Think of it as a >>> bureaucratic filing system - even if the topic of discussion drifts, >>> keeping the subject the same helps keep the thread of thought >>> together. >> Wait a minute - just two weeks ago you said "It's a good idea to edit the >> subject line of a discussion to reflect the topic being discussed" - which >> is it? > There's nothing inconsistent here, except in your head. > > I asked you offlist to look at the list of threads for just June and > tell me whether you thought each and every one was a genuine subject > edit in response to a topic change. You didn't. So I'll provide an > example from http://lists.urth.net/pipermail/urth-urth.net/2010-June/thread.html I didn't see any offlist messages from you, sorry. > What topic change, pray tell, is signaled by switching from > 'travelling north' to 'Urth Digest, Vol 70, Issue 15'? That's a consequence of the list owner allowing digest mode to the people who habitually overlook the part of each digest that says something substantially similar to "When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific than 'Re: Contents of GurpsNet-L digest...'" The list software is more than capable of being used to hold those people accountable for their oversights without penalizing everyone else. I mean, digest mode has it uses, but aside from the subject mangling it also fubars the message threading that would make life much easier for you by letting you blacklist a conversation and never see replies in it ever again, regardless of what their subject lines say. *That* is not just a crime against notional nettiquette but violates internet technology standards as well as creating technical problems for people with strong presentation preferences like yourself. ``` Jeff Wilson - jwilson at io.com IEEE Student Chapter Blog at < http://ieeetamut.org > ``` --- ### Jonathan Laidlow *09 Jun 2010, 11:20 · follows Jeff Wilson* While we're being kind to digest readers, it would help if some of you could delete the irrelevant portions of the messages you're replying to. Sometimes the digests have one message, which contains 6-7 previous messages, and they become very difficult to read... /ducks/ Jonathan www.ultan.org.uk --- ### Jeff Wilson *10 Jun 2010, 04:36 · in reply to Jonathan Laidlow* > On 6/9/2010 6:20 AM, Jonathan Laidlow wrote: > While we're being kind to digest readers, it would help if some of you > could delete the irrelevant portions of the messages you're replying to. > Sometimes the digests have one message, which contains 6-7 previous > messages, and they become very difficult to read... I agree that quote trimming is a very worthy practice, even if digest readers are often the worst offenders. ``` Jeff Wilson - jwilson at io.com IEEE Student Chapter Blog at < http://ieeetamut.org > ``` --- ### Gwern Branwen *12 Jun 2010, 01:56 · in reply to Jeff Wilson* >>> On Wed, Jun 9, 2010 at 12:11 AM, Jeff Wilson wrote: >>> Wait a minute - just two weeks ago you said "It's a good idea to edit the >>> subject line of a discussion to reflect the topic being discussed" - >>> which >>> is it? >> There's nothing inconsistent here, except in your head. >> >> I asked you offlist to look at the list of threads for just June and >> tell me whether you thought each and every one was a genuine subject >> edit in response to a topic change. You didn't. So I'll provide an >> example from >> http://lists.urth.net/pipermail/urth-urth.net/2010-June/thread.html > I didn't see any offlist messages from you, sorry. My mistake, that was James Wynn - same initials, I guess! ``` gwern ``` --- ### John Watkins *12 Jun 2010, 03:05 · in reply to Gwern Branwen* > On Fri, Jun 11, 2010 at 9:56 PM, Gwern Branwen wrote: > ** >> I didn't see any offlist messages from you, sorry. > My mistake, that was James Wynn - same initials, I guess! > > -- > gwern > _ We seem to be pretty common. > ______________________________________________ ---