After receiving this list post from our would be new administrator I felt
the need to respond.

First on the matter of not voting for the list administrator.
I'm of the opinion that on a mature list the list administrator should not
have to been seen on the list. Apart from his technical duties his actions
as list moderator, should only be seldomly called for.
As we all didn't really notice the absence of Sepsis until recently it
would seem that the Birthright list has this maturity. Only once in a while
does something like a flame fest or a wildly of topic thread pop-up.
As for quoting on relevant parts from posts, well that is the one thing I
have almost never seen being done. It seems that there is an inherent
lazyness in most people which precludes them from even taking this small
effort, and trying to enforce this seems to be a losing struggle everywhere.
All in all I was quite happy with the list as it was running, therefore I
didn't feel the need to respond to a call for votes as I was of the
assumption that the new moderator would not drastically affect this list.
After all his threat to remove lurkers from the list seemed to be one of
his little jokes to provoke people.

Which brings me to the second point, lurkers and their removal.
Jim makes it quite clear in his rules that he wasn't joking and that he
will be removing lurkers from the list. This is one of those drastic
changes in list policy which I didn't expect and can't quite fathom.
Lurkers don't harm a list (except for some bandwidth - which can be easily
compensated for by only quoting relevant portions), they show an interest
in the topic of the list which should be taken as an encouragement by the
active members. Apparently what they produce is so interesting that a lot
of people want to read it. Furthermore you never know when somebody get's
the urge or more free time and will become an active listmember.
As for myself and my own lurking, I have been a member of this list almost
since it's beginning. I have contributed and asked question in the past
(1996-digests)
and have had those questions answered. For myself I don't really have much
more question's about my vision of the Birthright universe, but when one
should arise I would like to still have the opportunity to ask it. And my
campaign, well, as we all got older the coordination of playing dates keeps
getting a bigger and bigger problem which means that we might be playing as
frequent as once every other month.
This means that I have about seen every other rules question come by the
list at least thrice, and almost know what the answers will be in advance.
When I feel something isn't answered to degree it needs I won't hesitate to
step in to answer or offer suplementary advice, but I won't be joining in
with an I agree with Darkstar or with Pieter or Sindre or whatever since
that isn't necessary and would be needlessly polluting the list.
What always is very interesting to read are campaign stories, new blood
powers, character classes etc. that people have been creating themselves.
And here Jim has a point, I (and we lurkers in general) don't really show
our appreciation very much for the people who do post these kind of things.
But then again why would you stop lurking to post an entirely off topic
post like "Thank you very much for what you have posted" (again
bandwidth/relevancy).

Now from what I understand of those new rules, people who will post
messages like thes would be allowed to stay on the list while the silent
lurker would be removed. I would say let people who want to show their
support to the regular contributors do this by private Email.

All in all I was unpleasantly surprised by these rules and will have to be
voting against Jim as administrator.

Jan Arnoldus (Jpmarn@XS4ALL.nl)


PS Well for this one time, three cheers and some zen hugs for all those
regular list contributors who make the list what it continues to be
interesting, informative, and thought provoking.

***Included for reference
At 01:49 28-05-99 -0700, Jim Cooper wrote:
>Okay,
>
>It seems that a few people are really rather taking me too seriously
>with my previous posts. I really wish people wouldn't (take me that
>seriously, at any rate, unless I call for it) - above all I like to make
>people laugh, and I can honestly say that I haven't been offended by
>anyone on this list since I joined in 1997. I hope I haven't done the
>opposite. Basically, it shouldn't be very hard to tell when I am being
>serious. This post is a good example. It should be *really* obvious
>when I am being serious - just compare this post to others that I have
>posted (or will post in the future). If it doesn't read like this post,
>then I'm attempting some lame humour. Smiley faces are a good
>indication of this.
>
>8) The administrator feels particularly passionate about this rule, and rest
>assured the administrator will be prowling the membership periodically
>(bi-annually) to see who is being active on this list. Members the
>administrator deems to be 'non-active' will be treated like they way
>they act - contribute nothing at all, get nothing at all in return.
>This translates into losing your membership in this forum. Its that
>simple, and don't think you deserve any better if you are a non-active
>member. If all you want to do is read, get the digest mode of this
>forum.
>

To unsubscribe from this list send mail to majordomo@lists.imagiconline.com
with the line