Re: In Defense (w/ minimal Who content) (fwd)

[Brad Goldman <brad@jimmy.harvard.edu>]

	More blather on keeping things on-topic:

Would it be censorship for Newsweek not to run a technical article
about abtruse math theorems?  Would it be censorship if Scientific
American readers said they didn't want to have 5 pages devoted to
arguments about the Bulls/Magic series?  Is it censhorship for a
newspaper not to run every Letter to the Editor it gets?

This list is analogous to getting a magazine or newspaper.  I'd be
pissed off if I subscribed to the Wall Street Journal and couldn't
find the financial news because it was buried among all the other
irrelevant crap.  I'd be kind of pissed off if I subscribed to a Who
Newletter and found half of the magazine didn't have a damn thing to
do with the Who.  Wanting them to be more specific to their raison
d'etre (had to fit that phrase in here somehow!) isn't censorship.
And sure I can just read the headlines and ignore the non-Who
articles, but it still makes it a bad newsletter.  Or at least a
different newsletter than I would expect.

This is only my 3rd or 4th mailing list I've been on.  The others have
all had a pretty firm rule that postings should have something to with
the stated purpose of the list.  This one doesn't seem to have that.
As far as I can tell, this list is completely unmoderated in any
significant way.  Which is fine, but it doesn't make someone a total
ignorant nazi asshole for wanting stuff to be on subject.  I never got
any official e-mail saying one way or the other if posts should be
kept on topic, so why would someone assume it's a totally freewheeling
list with no holds barred rather than a forum exclusively for the Who?

I started off hating all the stupid tangents.  I've gotten used to the
style, and I like it now, but I don't see where Rich deserves
cartloads of abuse.

On a totally separate topic, is there a Who FAQ anywhere?  Seems to be
some pieces of background knowledge floating around I need to beef up
on...  (now there's an opening for a flame!)

Also, what's ICE?  I thought it was a "I Can't Explain" abbreviation,
but that doesn't seem to fit.

> Don't you believe we are all capable enough of deciding what we should or
> shouldn't read? Once you start saying, "don't say this" or "don't say that"
> it's never ending. AND, just who is the final arbitor of good taste and/or
> Who content? 

It's not never ending.  I'm a member on the Queen list, and there's a
very distinct line about what's legit and what ain't.  It's not run by
a bunch of nazi pigs either.

Not sure if the final question was supposed to be rhetorical.  I would
think the final arbitor would either be a moderator, or failing that
some kind of consensus from the members of the list.

-- 
- Brad Goldman
 (Brad@jimmy.harvard.edu)