From: Paul Louden <paulthenerd_at_gmail.com>
Date: Wed, 15 Jul 2009 11:58:26 -0500

David Hall wrote:
>
> Perhaps off-list discussion is not the answer - but (IMHO) clearly
> on-list discussion is not the answer.
>

There's more or less only three options though - "tell the user off list
there's a rule they need to be aware of", "tell the user on list there's
a rule they need to be aware of" and "don't tell a user there's a rule
they need to be aware of." There are probably things we can do to better
make people aware of it in advance, but when it comes down to someone
who's missed them all, we have to pick one of those three. The last one
isn't going to make someone stop top posting, and between the first two
despite these long discussions the public one has had the higher success
rate for me.

The only way I can see to avoid these long discussions is to actually be
*harsher* about the whole matter, which I think would upset people even
more. Something along the lines of "top posting on this list is not
allowed. If you have any questions on how to avoid it, you're welcome to
post those. Any statements about the topic of top-posting other than
questions on how to resolve your behaviour will result in you, or the
poster's, loss of ability to post."

The problem is, in part, human behaviour. How do you stop someone from
objecting to a rule they disagree with if you don't want to punish them
simply for having an opinion?

Do we want to make it against the rules to discussion revision of the rules?
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Received on 2009-07-15