[NBLUG/talk] Go fuck yourself, Egan!

ME dugan at passwall.com
Tue Jun 10 01:43:00 PDT 2003


(You make an assumption that I did not attempt to resolve this in private.
You could have asked *me* this in private before accusing me of having not
tried this route first. Since you infer a public accusation against me for
not having tried to resolve these issues in private, I will reply on the
topic of my actions in public.)

Three private messages off list have been passed to him since the
complaints from NBLUG members were passed to me about the volume of
unrelated topics. Then, it was brought up at a board meeting as an issue.
Private messages are often best, since they help avoid issues of ego in
front of peers. Copies of all my messages have been passed to fellow board
members to ensure my peers knew what was being discussed. The notices
started out friendly and progressed to the last message you saw in public.

Unknown to you until now, he has been advised multiple times in private of
protocol on the list, and has chosen to ignore the suggestions.

How would you have handled things differently?

Issues (kept private until this post):
You are a member of a Linux list.
People are complaining to you about excess non-linux content.
You make attempts to resolve the issue in private and these fail.
People are now leaving the list.

What would you do?
If your private communications are ineffective and you end up ejecting him
from the list in private without fellow list members seeing the problem,
you can be accused of being a heavy handed dictator

If you reply in public after trying to resolve issues in private then you
get complaint(s) that you were indiscreet, the issue should have been
resolved in private, and are informed that you should apologize.

Seems, there is a no-win here.

Would you like to run for an NBLUG office so that you can help deal with
user complaints? I would gladly step aside and let others resolve user
complaints and either choose:
1) Ignore/deny resolution of the user complaints and upset them.
2) Communicate to the offender and upset them.

We have 6 positions open, feel free to nominate yourself if you feel I am
not doing an adequate job. I would feel no loss in being able to avoid the
extra work involved in helping my peers keep this organization running.
Such relief would permit me to focus on my job and school more.
We still have 2 weeks before the complete list of nominations is published
and made available for review and correction.

He also left a message on the public IRC channel:
>>let the fucking talk thing do what it wants if it makes people go away
>>fuck 'em they're too weak for linux anyway

By plan, my tour of duty ends either in September or after this next
election (if we can find someone who wants to be president and people are
willing to vote for in an election.) I knew this position was going to be
work, and figured 6 months of time is enough out of my life.

As for my part-- this problem is now solved; he has been removed from the
list. Several private warnings, and a public one, to which all can see the
response have brought us here. NBLUG has only ever removed 2 people from
their lists. It takes quite an effort of repeated problems and warnings
before a person is removed.

Also, Nobody else on this list has been notified by me of not following
protocol.

Please do not think that I want to see an end to all off topic discussion.
Even when 50% of some people's posts have been off topic, there have been
no complaints to me. When I get involved is when complaints are
registered-- then is becomes my problem.

Also, if you must know, this issue has been discussed by the board members
several times and made it as an item in our last sit-down board meeting.
At that time, we decided to see if the private warnings sent to him would
be effective. His last statement was his 5th strike in a 4 week period.

Using the above, you can now judge me as being unkind, heavy handed, and
indiscreet. Give me your suggestions so that I may apply them if this is
ever a problem again.

-ME

Ron Wickersham said:
> i agree that this post was uncalled for.
>
> however, i was disturbed when the long post dressing him down in public
> came on my screen.   that message would have been more appropriate in
> private mail.
>
> my vote is for both gentlemen to apologize and then get on with the
> mission of the list.
>
> -ron
>
>
> On Mon, 9 Jun 2003, Steve wrote:
>
>> I vote we kick this nitwit off the list.  This e-mail was totaly
>> uncalled for.




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