[Vwdiesel] Topic limited or people enabled? And wheel bearings.

[Scott Kair]

    When Kirby lost access to the server from which the original group ran,
we had to find another host in very short order.  "Blue Eyes" quickly set up
a group on yahoo, while Loren prevailed upon Dan Simoes' good graces to
provide us with bandwidth and archive space on his vwfans.com/ audifans.com
site.  Essentially while we're not quite freeloaders, we are living in Dan's
guest house, with free hosting, no advertising, and no spam.      

    Over time, the list has evolved and there's been a tradition of
promoting off-topic subjects that are at least tangential to Diesels, as
well as tolerating off-the-wall rants- but only to a point with the latter.
Generally, the group has held together through it all, and the tangential
subjects are often as informative and rewarding as learning how to change
glow plugs with a minimum loss of blood.

    The political and religious rants, though, are another matter.  Most of
us are tolerant of periodic slams aimed at crooks and liars on either side
of the aisle, but a good many of us seem to find prolonged arguments over
politics or religion to be out of place on this forum.  What Hagar neglected
to point out is that on more than one occasion, things got heated enough
that someone stormed off in a huff- usually not a great loss in itself- but
then complained to the listowner, and Dan has had to post discrete reminders
that he doesn't have the time or inclination to act as a moderator.  Read
into those reminders what you will, but I'd consider the long term benefits
of the knowledge gained from the list to outweigh any short term amusement
derived from yanking somebody's chain.

    I treasure Hagar's life experiences and accrued wisdom as much as
anyone, but I can foresee another one of those reminders popping up in the
inbox if things proceed at this rate. I'd hate to see him get bounced from
the group, or lose the whole group when we have a wart list established
specifically for those unseemly topics.

    Scott Kair