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It's amazing how one individual can destroy an otherwise valuable list
like this one. I have never been an advocate of a "moderated" list
until recently, when a really good list became polluted by the rantings
and ravings of one individual -- and what a person it was:
He only posted from an alias location with an alias name.
He felt that the world, and especially commercial ventures, both owed
him a living and the obligation to freely give him whatever he wanted,
however he wanted it, and whenever he wanted it.
If anyone didn't comply, he attacked them for being morally deficient
scam artists, or ignoramuses who didn't understand what they were
talking about.
He personally provided all the list participants with an ideal model of
the individual who has high levels of both integrity and ability.
First, by helping us all avoid the necessity of paying for the items
that ordinary individuals are forced, through their ignorance, to buy
from those who created them.
And secondly, by documenting his personal competence in the area being
discussed, by posting "new" insights; ideas which clearly were at odds
with what every experienced practitioner in the field had heretofore
believed were true. Even ideas as simple as this forums definition of a
"moving average."
What I really couldn't understand was the other list participants
willingness to play his game and let him play the role of "sheriff." He
dominated the list with his vitriol, but the other list members helped
him do so by actually replying to his posts as if their logic mattered.
No matter the content of the reply, it was evidence in his mind that
they were idiots at best, but more probably crooks too.
I guess if you are one, it's easy to believe that everyone else is one
too.
And if he was only ignored, and not given an audience, he would have
gone elsewhere eventually.
I'm sure glad we don't have that problem on this list.
Richard Funkhouser
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