When an earlier poster scribbled:
--| Does the complainer's software somehow force them to be read?

On Mon, 22 Aug 2005 at 19:37 -0000, Bob Haberkost replied:
-No, but I got tired of seeing the headers, too.

Uh, er ... isn't that a bit lame? ahem After all, as a cer-
tain poster already said:

On Mon, 22 Aug 2005 at 19:37 -0000, Bob Haberkost scribbled:
-In my view, a moderated newsgroup such as this one has discourse,
-maybe even arguments, all which progress until the thread either
-dies from lack of interest/nothing more to say/no longer germaine,
-or, in rare instances, where the moderator shuts down a thread be-
-cause it's strayed too much from what we're supposed to discuss to
-be included here.

Say, whaddaya know! That was none other than YOU! grin In the
first sentence of your very own posting, you contradicted that lamo
"tired of seeing it" excuse. It looks like you're gonna have to
flame yourself now! Go to it! Have fun! ha-ha

But seriously, folks (as the comedians are wont to say), your
point is well-taken. Mr. Sobol is an experienced moderator, he's
been moderating this group for years, and the "offending" announce-
ment appeared only a couple of times. You should have more faith in
the moderator, who I'm confident would've axed the "offending" post-
ing if the poster had kept on submitting the same post multiple addi-
tional times.

-While I've never seen anything in the way of actual participation
-in this newsgroup from Mr Gottesman ...

Oh, does that matter!? Are postings to be judged not by what
people say in the text of their postings but rather by who they are?
I beg to differ: Mr. Gottesman's posting should've been judged accept-
able or unacceptable based on its content, regardless of whether he
was a "member" of the "club."

And speaking of that "club," yes, I'll have to admit you haven't
seen me posting much here either. I've done all my posting on the
"alt" group for many years but that's another story. In any case,
as I said recently on another newsgroup, "nobody owns the Usenet."

Then there's this exchange where the earlier poster said:
--| Why not just skip them?

....and in the same posting listed above, you replied:
-I shouldn't have to in a moderated newsgroup.

The implication is that because it's a moderated newsgroup, you
expect 100% of the postings to be to YOUR liking and OF INTEREST to
YOU. Uh, gee, I'm SOOOOO sorry to break your bubble boo-hoo!, but
that just ain't reality -- unless you're the moderator. Everybody
has to pick and choose which postings they're going to spend time
on reading. Even in moderated newsgroups, there are always going to
be some postings, even good postings, dealing with some facet of the
subject which any one person isn't going to be interested in.

-... maybe I will killfile Mr Gottesman....but I'd rather hope that
-I'll see something of substance from him rather than his continued
-co-opting of this group for his own financial gain.

To paraphrase a remark in June by Stephen Harper in Canada.... If
you want to be so friendly and encourage constructive participation
on this newsgroup, you sure have a strange way of showing it! grin
In other words, it's too late now. Gottesman's gone. He apologized.
He left in a huff. (Or maybe it was a Cadillac or a Lexus.) He fell
on his sword. He's not likely to be back. He's history.

And now other posters, who may have legitimate postings but per-
haps there's some "commercial" element to them, will be scared off
from posting here. And still other readers may shy away from posting
because they figure you're just gonna slam them too. I've seen the
exact same thing happen on other newsgroups. It's the same story
over and over.

And finally, one more point: You do realize, don't you?, that
when you said that the mere sight of the title of this thread ANNOYS
you, you've practically invited people to keep on posting quibbles
about this and that and the other?! -- because everybody now knows
ha-ha-ha that you're gonna be annoyed!

It's like "Banned in Boston!" grin You've done the one thing
to guarantee the opposite of the result you wanted! We're all laugh-
ing, I gar-on-tee! It'll be a hoot now to see how long this thread
title lasts. tee-hee
--
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david moeser -- erasmus39 on yahoo
Censornati, Ohio - USA
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* "What's the frequency, Kenneth?" *

(Headers munged to foil spammers; real info in taglines)