On 07/09/07, Steve Bennett stevagewp@gmail.com wrote:
On 9/7/07, Monahon, Peter B. Peter.Monahon@uspto.gov wrote:
Peter Blaise responds: Ahh, and therein lies the rub. Who decides what's off topic? As suggested earlier, even a moderator's feeling of déjà vu would be
We decide as a group what the topic is. And moderators exercise their judgment as to whether something is on topic or not. Other readers help, by gently nudging discussions back on track, or making sure at least part of a message is on topic. It's quite common.
'Axiom #3: Sturgeon's Law (90% of everything is crap) applies to Usenet. Corollary #5: In an unmoderated newsgroup, no one can agree on what constitutes the 10%. Corollary #6: Nothing guarantees that the 10% isn't crap, too.' -- Gene Spafford http://homes.cerias.purdue.edu/~spaf/quotes.html
The solution: killfiles. Your own personal moderation system, to not receive e-mail from those you don't like. NB: May work better if public archival is turned off.
Again, is it worth my time to try to program a Mailman-side killfile for y'all? Would such a patch actually be used, were it written?