Rampant Off Topic Posts, what to do about it

[Warren Togami]

larry s wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> Is there any kind of Policy for the content of the
> Fedora list or stated purpose of the list?
> 
> I was under the impression that the list was for
> people helping other people with the use of Fedora. 
> I'm sure you have seen all the
> Politco-Off-Topic-Ranting lately about Microsoft
> and/or Windows, GPL etc.  In my opinion this really
> destroys the usefullness of the list.  There appear to
> be some major problems with FC4 right now and you can
> hardly pick out information from the noise.
> 
> If you cannot, or will not, manage the list
> topic/content then I will have to drop the list and
> FC4 and go to another distribution.  It is simply a
> time-waster that I cannot afford.  A couple of months
> ago I was touting FC4 to people I know and referring
> to the great support on the mail list.  All of that
> has now changed and I would like to know your thoughts
> on the matter.
> 
> Thanks
> LS

While I personally agree that all of the discussion about Microsoft, 
foreign fonts, and other flame wars here is very off topic and 
detrimental to the list, we are hesitant to impose censorship on a 
discussion list.  It is a huge waste of time to management and a 
slippery slope.  How do we fairly draw a line?  Everything is not 
clearly black or white.

That being said, I do request that list members please refrain from 
discussing things not strictly about Fedora on this list.  There are 
better places elsewhere to discuss Microsoft conspiracies, useless GPL 
speculation, or insular American attitudes toward foreign languages.

Also, please also refrain from endlessly complaining about 
aforementioned behavior.  If you ignore trolls, they eventually give up 
and go away.  Feeding trolls only makes them stronger, and you become 
one of them.

http://forums.fedoraforum.org/
If you want to give up on this list, I usually recommend folks to head 
over to Fedora Forum because user lists don't scale even under best 
conditions.  A web forum is better able to organize topics, flame wars 
are much better controlled, while off-topic drivel is easily moved to 
where it belongs.

Warren Togami
wtogami at redhat.com