[s-cars] Question of the Day ..

[Brett Dikeman]

 > Is Joe Pizzo actually banned from the list.
 > Can someone clarify this for us ?

For one week, yes.

   Joe didn't share that, because he sent me an abusive, threatening  
email before I could finish an email to him.  It's only the second  
time I've been physically threatened by a lister in ten years of  
being on the list (the first person was banned for life, though that  
was because he was harassing other list members as well).  Despite  
the threats, I'm still sticking to just one week- and I've also  
decided not to share the email he sent, unlike the ones from the  
first person (my usual policy is that if you get to the level of  
making threats, I stop talking to you entirely, and you'll find your  
email on the web for friends, family, and potential/current employers  
to find, along with the email of mine that you were responding to).

   Joe is one of a very small minority of individuals to have ever  
been banned, temporarily or not.  It is extremely rare.  In each  
case, its an individual who flagrantly violated the "rules of the  
house" and/or needed to understand that they are GUESTS and we are  
their HOSTS.  They're often individuals who behave like they're "top  
dog", interfering with the operation of the site.  In most cases it  
has been for only a week or so, to demonstrate the point and get the  
person to cool down.

   In Joe's case, he decided to pick a fight with a site admin (me)  
about site policy (car stuff is another matter entirely- I'll happily  
admit I'm often wrong there).  When I searched my email for his name,  
I came up with several other emails where he had responded to my  
posting on administrative topics, and it was much of the same "I've  
got a chip on my shoulder" BS.  This was not an isolated incident.

   If I send you an email about site policy along with a nice  
explanation of why we do things that way, and your response it to  
turn around and insult me- you're challenging me, picking a fight.   
Having demonstrated to me that words will accomplish nothing with  
you, you won't get a fight- you'll get banned.  I'd challenge you to  
find any other forum where arguing with the administrators won't get  
you bounced.  You treat all listers with respect, and as in the real  
world, you treat those whose efforts you benefit from, with a little  
more respect.  You don't have to like us, or fawn over us, or  
anything like that.  Just don't be a jerk, especially when we have  
the unpleasant task of reminding someone, and the rest of the list,  
of the rules.

   As I explained in my original message to Joe, which you all  
received as well, we have a few rules- they're simple, designed in  
the best interests of the community, and based off experience running  
mailing lists for quite some time, with a lot of small but important  
reasons behind each of them.  They apply to every list on this site,  
though the s-car list has historically received some leeway on the  
"for sale" emails.  At the time, the s-car list needed a home badly,  
allowed that sort of thing, and we wanted to be good hosts.  Over the  
years I've occasionally reminded s-car listers of the site rules in  
hopes that they'd take the hint, and/or that the other lists were not  
the same.

   The issue came about primarily because Taka CC'd the quattro list,  
where there is no such leeway.  I didn't even respond to him, because  
someone on the quattro list did a good job of explaining why they  
thought I had spoken up- and the issue was pretty much over.  It  
persisted on the s-car list, as almost any administrative issue seems  
to, because someone's got to wave their willy, have the last word,  
and make the people who run the place out to be ogres or nazis.

The rules we ask everyone to follow are simple, few, and common on  
virtually any mailing list, newsgroup, or web board of appreciable size:

-You're not allowed to spam the lists.  Like every other forum out  
there, we have a place for for-sale stuff, and you're expected to use  
it.  When listers said they wanted somewhere to sell stuff, the  
marketplace software was hand-coded for us by Mark Chang.  When  
listers said items for sale there didn't get enough attention,  
someone came up with the idea of the notification list.

-You're asked to make your posts legible mostly for your own  
interests (so you don't look like an idiot in front of a lot of  
people, and so people feel more inclined to answer your post), and  
trim your replies, in our interests and that of your fellow list  
members; not everyone has DSL or cable internet access.  Some people  
do actually still pay per-byte, though they are a minority.  Many of  
you use webmail accounts with limited storage space, though gmail has  
made this less of an issue.  It also slows down Google's indexing of  
our site, which everyone complains about.  Lastly, with the advent of  
DNS blacklists that block DSL/cable IP addresses (where a large  
amount of spam comes from), it is not as simple as "throw Audifans on  
a home internet connection"- large numbers of you simply wouldn't get  
the email.  Business-class DSL costing well over a hundred dollars a  
month in the capacity we need (we need a lot of outgoing bandwidth,  
not much incoming), and commerical hosting costing even more-  
bandwidth for something like Audifans is not easy to come by.   
Currently we're hosted by an enterprise-class facility which has  
provided incredible reliability, and they're willing to do for free  
so in part because we're neither greedy nor 'high maintenance'.  So  
when we ask you to trim your posts, we have our reasons, as you can  
see.  Often the reasons are plentiful.

-You're asked to respect others.  In fact, the exact wording is:  
"never attack, put down, etc another lister. We are a community of  
enthusiasts who are here to fix our cars and have a good time...this  
is simply not acceptable and you may find yourself subject to  
disciplinary action." There are some warnings about using sarcasm  
with people you don't know well, etc.

That's pretty much it; there's little stuff not really relevant.   
These rules have been up on the "help" section of the site for  
several years, accessible by clicking "help" on the site banner, then  
"Posting Guidelines".  It's not asking much (if you disagree, email  
me in private with how you feel you're not getting your money's worth).

As for all of those who felt it necessary to make fun of my name- the  
last person who did that was a classmate of mine, who back in middle  
school, went around shooting his BB gun into kids' bedroom windows at  
night (not mine, he didn't get very far from his house before the  
cops found him hiding in a bush with the gun in his hands).  If you  
want to be associated with that kind of individual and age group, be  
my guest- but I'd suggest growing up.  In the words of Ellen  
Degeneres- "That's what they called me in 4th grade".

Brett
-- 
"They that give up essential liberty to obtain temporary
safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." - Ben Franklin
http://www.users.cloud9.net/~brett/