[ale] Ale subscribers

[Aaron Ruscetta]

On Tue, Oct 15, 2013 at 7:59 PM, Jim Kinney <jim.kinney at gmail.com> wrote:
> Sorry, Aaron. It seems you missed the point.

I didn't miss any point.

> ALE is dying.

That may be your opinion, but I don't see any medical degree.
However, bull shit negative attitudes like yours certainly stand a
good chance of killing it.  You don't have any more justification
or right to shut down ALE than the fascist democracy raping rabid
republican terrorist traitor fucks in the house of representatives
have any justification or authority to shut down the great nation
of America.

> The group is sustained by members and they have been leaving
> in droves. The group is close to needing life support.

Our LIST membership has been shrinking, yes.  I think the biggest
problem there is monopolization to the point of abuse by one or two
discourteous individuals.  Of course, the factors may well be some
of the others mentioned in this thread, like the advent of other sources
of information; there is a lot that a little google fu can do to answer
questions these days.

On the other hand, meeting attendance and involvement (when
someone has organized a meeting...) has remained pretty consistent
over the past couple years, especially when you factor in SPSU and
the revived NW group.  It was very frustrating and disappointing that
no one did much of a job of maintaining the Central meetings in my
long absences this year, and as a result it has been extremely
difficult getting the wheels rolling again.

ALE is not on life support, but it does need some really serious
consideration of how it can serve a wider constituency.  If there is
some energy out there to pursue that, then we might be growing
again.  If not, then there is no harm and no foul in continuing
existence as group of like minded gray beards.

> The massive overload of single-source OT posts is acting like
> the angel of death for ALE. Thus the raising of the iron fist of
> moderation.

We discussed this off list, and the Iron Fist is a last resort,
not the first one.  No one has addressed the problem persons
in a polite adult manor and asked them to be more aware and
equitable in the use of the group resources.

> I can't sit in the closest thing there is to a drivers seat and watch the
> cliff get closer and closer without doing something. When ALE blew
> up over  politics, I heard both sides and took a hard, no preferences
> stance and did  just what I'm doing now. I'm saying 'NO MORE CRAP
> POSTS BECAUSE IT'S DRIVING AWAY OUR PEOPLE!'

Censorship will make it so no one wants to be here at all.  And frankly
it has no place here, or anywhere people have a delete button.
Freedom isn't free, and if the price of free speech is as dirt cheap
as tolerating the robotic talking point spew of political retards, then
it's a deal.

> If enough people royally pitch a fit over my attempted Hail Mary
> Save the List effort, I'll gladly pass the torch and move on.

At this point I think we need to make the invitation.

in peace,
aaron


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