[ga] [ADMIN] Note on inappropriate use of the complaint mechanism

[Harald Alvestrand <Harald@Alvestrand.no>]

There has been a regrettable tendency in recent weeks to have exchanges of 
the form:

A: "I think X"
B: "You must be out of your mind to think X"
C: "A has been personally attacked, and the monitor should silence B"
    (CC to ga-abuse@dnso.org)

The discussion then deteriorates into a discussion about the monitor's
neutrality, the posters' personal morals and the list rules, often
forgetting all about the original claim X.

The moderator wishes to remind the participants that:

- The monitor has, as a matter of personal choice, decided not to raise
   complaints about insults to himself on the GA list. As long as there is
   only one monitor, this limits his ability to address abusive postings
   of this particular type.

- The Chair is free to appoint more monitors at any time.
   Thus, if neutrality of the monitor is in question, the right choice is
   to get someone perceived as more neutral to volunteer for the job.

- The monitor is not required to react to all violations of the rules by
   imposing sanctions. When a reminder is enough, this is a much less
   disruptive measure.

- The monitor occasionally sleeps, or does other things than reading the
   GA list. So the fact that a complaint has been raised does not mean that
   there will be an immediate reaction.

For the record, the monitor does not find that 
http://www.dnso.org/clubpublic/ga/Arc06/msg00506.html constitutes a 
personal attack.




--
Harald Tveit Alvestrand, alvestrand@cisco.com
+47 41 44 29 94
Personal email: Harald@Alvestrand.no

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