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JR Ok, Now I look like a jerk for jumping on you so hard. I'm glad you went over the postings more completely and changed your mind about the intrinsic value of some members of this list. I hope you'll accept my apology. Dan Volker >Folks, > >About four hours ago, based on three inputs, I posted a message indicating >that I was deleting George M Irvine from this list. I explained my reasons >for this. > >Unfortunately, one of my inputs: the actual messages that were causing >all the concern, was very much incomplete. Having realized this error, >and being now in possession of more complete facts, I am reversing my >earlier decission. > >I am restoring George's membership of the list. I have sent him personal >email to this effect. I have apologized to him, and I apologize to him >in public here also. > >The facts: > >1. I have received a lot of email complaining about the quality of > the TechDiver list. These complaints have been increasing over > the last few weeks. Many complaints have been about George > specifically. > >2. About 30% of the list's membership has unsubscribed this week. > >3. Although I do not subscribe to the list directly myself, I do read > the list articles using the Web-Archive interface. Before I took > my earlier action, I had read to the end of the index. I had > thought I was up-to-date. > > Unfortunately, a system error had caused the Archive's index not > to have been updated all week. I had not seen any of this week's > articles. I failed to notice the fact that the dates in the > archive had stopped incrementing. It was only after I took my > earlier decission that I saw email from someone about that, and > then realized the problem. > > I have now corrected the problem. I've now also read up on the > recent messages, and I see that (in my own personal opinion) > recent postings are not at all offensive nor are they cause for > a censorship action. > >As I said, I have therefore added George back to the list. I have >emailed him an apology. As someone who holds free speech as a very >important and fundamental right, I am embarrassed that I took the action >that I did. > >The TechDiver list does still have problems: > >A. There is an excessive volume of postings on the list. > > About a year ago, I implemented a Web-Archive interface to > TechDiver. If you find the volume of postings too high, you can > unsubscribe, and you can read the list using the URL: > > http://www.terra.net/mlist/aquanaut/techdiver > > You need only read the articles that interest you. > >B. Many poeple complain that there are a lot of postings with very > little informative content. > > This is harder to solve. I have read several solutions: > > - Make the list moderated > > - Limit the number of messages forwarded per day > > - Delay all messages by some fixed time period > > - Form a newsgroup > > - Just request folk to consider very carefully whether a > reply should go to the whole list, or just to the > original poster > > I do not know what the best solution is. I will leave this > issue to those that have time for it. > >I will say that, whatever the outcome of this whole issue is, I will >continue to provide resources for this or a future form of this list, >and I will continue to provide the Archive and Web interface services. >If anyone does form a Techincal Diving newsgroup or moderated list, I will >provide Archive and Web search tools for it, too. > >My interest is to provide a forum for discussion of views. I hope >we continue to have such discussion. > >No doubt this issue, and my actions, will provoke much debate. I urge >that if you have an issue with me, you send email to me, and not to >the list. Let's get the list back to Technical Diving subjects and >keep the flames away. > > -jr > >-- >Send mail for the `techdiver' mailing list to `techdiver@terra.net'. >Send subscription/archive requests to `techdiver-request@terra.net'. > > Dan Volker SOUTH FLORIDA DIVE JOURNAL http://www.florida.net/scuba/dive 407-683-3592
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