[at-l] Re: Staying on Topic

[Charles Copeland" <charles@uswnet.com (Charles Copeland)]

Weary wrote:
"They clearly are not into understanding trail origins and history,
expanding the trail,  creating  trail  buffers  or  protecting  the  trail
from harmful hiker practices.  I  don't criticize the list for its choices.
I do criticize the list for  denying  the  obvious.  I  will leave
speculation about the reasons for the denial to others. My particular
specialty is facts."


My response:

1) Stop speaking for me.

2) Stop putting people on this list on the defensive.  It's not the topics
that I get bothered about - it is the INABILITY TO DISCUSS them!  It only
takes a few emails worth of "discussion" for the "discussion" to become an
offensive name-calling slugfest that deteriorates into a pissing contest
about who can defend his or her worthiness to the Trail.

3) The TA-L list was formed so that kind of waste of bandwidth would not
negatively affect a very diverse and friendly community of hikers here on
AT-L.

4) Everyone has a right to his opinion and an equal right to express
it -but- [IMHO] you all have an obligation to express it in the forum that
was created for you -and- you all have an obligation to try to keep things
civil in your "discussions".  Neither are occurring.


Charles