ADMIN: You undoubtedly know what it's about

[TECHWR-L Administrator <admin -at- RAYCOMM -dot- COM>]

Gang,
I trust I'm not the only one who's appreciating the
irony of people wasting time and energy castigating
Andrew Plato for being rude and wasting everyone else's
time.

We've had enough discussion about it. I think that
John Posada's complaint about Andrew's lack of substantive
contributions to the list, followed by his apology
after being reminded of several worthwhile posts,
pretty well sums it up. You can like or dislike or
even ignore Andrew's attempts at humor, but they're
certainly valid comments on the state of the profession
and the concerns expressed on the list. As I've said
before, I will silence people for abuse, for flagrantly
off-topic posts, but I WILL NOT SILENCE PEOPLE BECAUSE
OTHERS DO NOT WISH TO HEAR.

Andrew's satire is a more worthwhile contribution
to a technical communication list than, say, a query
about EMF and computer hardware, a reposting of the Internet
humor drivel of your choice, or any "me, too",
"unsubscribe me", or "I didn't check the archives
or any other resources, so I'll just ask for the
third time this week" messages. Satire castigating
some of the most frequent problems affecting technical
writers (afflicting technical writers) is certainly
legit--and if you don't think that many potential
employers see many list messages much as Andrew's
message portrays them, you're unfortunately mistaken.

As one of the less complimentary messages in my inbox
reads:
"Best of luck upholding any semblance of respect,
<deleted>"

I'd have a harder time with respect if I was trying
to sanitize the list from on-topic-but-not-fun-to-
think-about messages than trying to merely keep
the discussions focused on technical communication.

Not to go too far in Andrew's defense--from my
perspective, he was right up against the limits
of acceptable vs. abusive. But, (in my own
assessment of how egregious an offense is), he
bought himself some leeway (that he just used up)
with several very pithy, valuable messages in the
last few weeks.

(Yes, I make that sort of mental calculation on
most offtopic messages, and people who answer
questions and attempt to contribute to the
community get more leeway than people who
persist in off-topic or irrelevant postings, or
who take and take and don't give back.)

Yell with questions, but do not continue
the discussion on the list.
Eric


Eric J. Ray
TECHWR-L Listowner
ejray -at- raycomm -dot- com
http://www.raycomm.com/


 From ??? -at- ??? Sun Jan 00 00:00:00 0000=