Please stop spamming this list with Microsoft relatedmessages

[phiscock-g851W1bGYuGnS0EtXVNi6w at public.gmane.org]

As one of the people who has posted these articles (actually, pointers to
the articles), I've given some thought to Leah's email.

Her request does seem a bit familiar: When I was a kid, we had big family
discussions over dinner and from time to time my mom would pronounce that
a particular topic was 'Not of General Interest'. What that really meant
was that it wasn't of *her* interest. (She also forbade discussion of
family plans at the dinner table. I have no idea why.)

There have been a number of topics posted in this forum that are not
'Directly Linux specific'. For example, Hugh posted information about the
upcoming lecture on Copyright by Michael Geist. Hugh has spent enough time
with the members of this group that he thought the information would be of
interest. I found that very useful and I'll be attending the lecture.

I suggest that limiting the discussion to, say, 'Why the sound on my mobo
won't work under Linux' is  not the way to go. Reasons:

(a) Mom couldn't just delete a particular dinner table conversational
thread, she had to sit through it. But readers of this group can recognise
that a topic is not of their interest and delete the offending emails.
(Remember how people used to gripe about 'wasted bandwidth'? You don't
hear that phrase any more...)

(b) Based on my knowledge of this group, I suggest that digressions and
off-topic posts are, within limits, quite acceptable. For example, the
most recent Tlug meeting was essentially nothing *but* digression. I
thought it entertaining and informative.

The specific email that I posted related to the featurization of XP. My
view is that the evolution of software in general is of interest to Linux
developers. The Creaping Feature Creature is a real issue, not only in XP,
but also the current generation of Linux desktops. Are more buttons
better? Not necessarily. Maybe even 'probably not'.

All that said, if there is a general concensus that so-called off-topic
posts are verboten - and we can all agree what is 'on topic' - I'm
prepared to hue to that.

Peter


-- 
Peter Hiscocks
Syscomp Electronic Design Limited, Toronto
http://www.syscompdesign.com
USB Oscilloscope and Waveform Generator
416-465-0325

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