The Military Budget as Cookies

This excellent animation from TrueMajority shows in graphic detail (using Oreo cookies) how ridiculously, large the military budget is, and how we could solve many domestic problems with a modest 12% cut. A must-see. (watch it now)

How to Not Get
Hit by Cars

An illustrated guide for bicyclists. Might save your life.

(Visit now...)

Cheap Airfares

How to find the
Cheapest Airfare

Everything you wanna know.

(Visit now...)

Battery Guide

Which battery is best? We cover rechargeable and alkaline batteries to show you what's hot, what's not, and the best way to charge them. (visit now)

Email List Poll


How should we run the email list?


The following poll of listmembers determined the policies for the email list.

Web forum gateway
 % voting for 1st column
yes no
 Send posts from the web forum to the email list.
immediately
 next day
 For those getting the posts individually (rather than as a digest), send posts from the web forum immediately, or send all of one day's post on the next day
(Note: If you're getting the list in digest format, which is the default, you should choose "Immediately", otherwise you'll tend to get messages when they're two days old.)
List rules
yes no No insults of other listmembers about their posts, even off-list.
yes no Replies to web posts must be made on the web, not the email list.  (Otherwise the person/people being replied to might not see the replies.)
yes no Quote no more than about five lines of what you're replying to, and without headers or footers.
yes no Don't message the email list and a bunch of other people at the same time.  If you do, then when listmembers start doing Reply-All, all those other people have been made de-facto members of a list they never subscribed to.  If you want to send your message to the list and to others, send one message to the list, and another message to the others.
Moderation (what posts get held for review, instead of being sent through automatically)
yes no Review posts from the web forum before they go to the list.
[I'm recommending a "No" vote on this, so you can get the posts faster.  Posts are reviewed by volunteers who can't always get to them quickly, so when posts are held for review, there's a delay before gets around to approving them for the list -- sometimes a long delay.  If you already voted for "Yes" and want to change your vote, just vote again.  That will replace your old vote. Note that having posts sent without review will result in a *tiny* amount of more spam (currently about 1 message per week). If the spam increases, we can always change this setting back.]
yes no Review posts from new members before they go to the list.  (New members are those most likely to do things like quote the whole digest.)
yes no Review posts from members who've made a bad post recently or frequently.

 


Background


The email list exists for the benefit of the community, and therefore the community decides how it's run.  All important decisions about how the list operates are in the members' hands, not mine -- as you can see from the poll above.

Despite this, since the beginning, some members have complained that I supposedly lord over the list.  For example, one said, "You're a fascist who seems hell-bent on forcing people to experience the list/forum exactly the way you want it experienced."  I don't know why they think that, given that the listmembers make the rules, not me.  And when I've announced a poll, other members actually have actually complained about being polled!  Go figure.  In any event, the truth remains:  Listmembers have complete control over the list rules, as always.  I don't even vote in the polls, I recuse myself, so in fact I have no say in these matters, and I'm the only one with no say in these matters.

The "dictator" charge isn't the only one not grounded in reality.  Another is that I and the other moderators routinely censor unpopular viewpoints.  (We don't.  In fact, we don't censor any viewpoints, period.  All viewpoints are welcome, as long as there's no name-calling.)  Another charge is that the list is "private".  In reality, it's quite public.  Anyone can join, anyone can post, everyone can say whatever they want as long as they don't insult other members, and all posts are available for free over the web.  And the few rules we have are decided by the community.  If that constitutes a "private" list, then I have to wonder how a public list would differ.

Anyway, this is your list.  If you don't like the settings, please don't blame me, blame your fellow listmembers.

-- Michael Bluejay, Aug. 2010





Another site by Michael Bluejay...

Saving Electricity. Find out how much juice your stuff uses, and how to save money and energy. As seen in Newsweek.

Entire website ©1995-2021 by Michael Bluejay