[ale] as promised/threatened, an overly long post with probably nothing of real importance

[Pat Regan]

On Thu, 5 May 2011 22:41:18 -0400
George Allen <glallen01 at gmail.com> wrote:

> Whether OT posts should be banned or not I won't say. I learned a few
> good things from the legal/technical discussions on electronic voting
> a few years ago, but, again, some of it was pure BS also. We're all

I find many of the off topic posts interesting.  If a thread isn't
interesting it is simple enough to hit a key and mark the thread as
read and never see it again.

There are plenty of uninteresting on posts on this list that could have
been answered with a ten second Google search.  I don't know about the
majority but I have very little interest in those threads.

Just because I have no interest in them doesn't mean I don't believe
they shouldn't be welcome here.  

> Anyway, it's the 'Linux' list, which is why most of the time, I only
> post re: Linux. And hopefully next time I refer someone to the list
> they'll actually feel like they can ask questions and use the depth of
> experience here, rather than cancelling with a bad taste in their
> mouth.

This isn't "the 'Linux' list," it is a Linux mailing list centered
around people living in Atlanta.  IMHO, if I wanted to participate in
discussions solely related to the topic of Linux I wouldn't have joined
a local mailing list.  Everyone seems to be ignoring the "Atlanta" in
ALE.

I tend to think of local LUG mailing lists more like a local pub where
I can hang out and talk to other like minded people.  I don't expect to
only hear about just the one particular topic that we are all
interested in.  

I fully expect to hear about things related to current events.  I am
actually quite surprised there was no discussion of the earthquake and
tsunami in Japan, or a technical discussion of the breakdown of the
Fukushima reactor.

Although it is completely possible I just missed both of those
discussions :)

Pat