honestly, i was pretty disappointed to find out that two very good friends of mine and long-term list members were asked, no, make that badgered into leaving the list because people didn't like their exchanges with Thrash

Hah! This problem comes about at least once on every list. I am sad to see the orb list change from what it was in 1999, but things change. Even the orb has changed, and even before 1999. I've been on the orb mailing list since at least then (check the archives, I've been using email benmay@cuccfa.ccc.columbia.edu as well as blm14@columbia.edu), but I do not grieve for what the list once was. As far as topic police goes, personally I do not view these lists or BBS's or weblogs (or anything which is generally topic-specific online) as being a way to discuss the topic. It is a way for people who all enjoy the same topic or are interested in it to discuss whatever topic is there. To attempt to avoid this in an unmoderated forum is both pointless and legitimately boring. Who would want to be on a list which gets 300 messages a day about the same topics over and over. I mean, from the perspective of someone who's also been on the list a while, I'm glad to see we aren't still all discussing the audio flaws in the Anthology II boot versus the lack thereof in the equivalent Visitor boot. Old topics gets stale, and if they are discussed constantly, you will have high member turnover. These things are unavoidable, like them or not.

(the king of inappropriateness).

You have to admit, occasionally thrash has his moments of clarity and even moments where he speaks truth; I suspect that his highest bandwidth form of communication is not writing emails. I would love to meet the man in person...

i mean, really people! all this off-topic bullshit and you folks are going to harass people for debating Thrash?!

I would like to not see people harassing one another, but I also haven;t seen anything approaching an old school flame war on here recently. There have been worse spats than this, and I'm sure there will be worse ones than this in the future.

i only hope that the same folks who felt it was in "our" best interest to have those members leave, also are bombarding the posters of political babble with the same vehemence.

Well, one could argue that political babble has more value than personal and often profane personal attacks. :) Its a shame people left, but nobody forced them to join and nobody forced them to leave. I wonder if any really hoped for people on the list to leave. That would be lame. I also would think its unfair to say all of our political discussion of late has been vehement. I dont recall expressing particular amounts of anger in any of my recent emails. Nor personal attacks. <scratches head>

whew! just had to get that off my chest...

:) See, thats why this list is cool. You can make that post, and people will read it. I hope people read this one, despite its length :) _________________________________________________________________ STOP MORE SPAM with the new MSN 8 and get 2 months FREE* http://join.msn.com/?page=features/junkmail