My turn (sumo list netiquette)

[steveb@telco.com (Stephen Baker)]

Fellow Sumo-niacs (seems more appropriate now than ever),

Since we seem to be in a brief period of spleen venting (which BTY, I think is 
a good thing as long as no irreparable harm is done)...my turn. If you don't 
want to hear it...file it under T !-)

Firstly, let me say that I didn't find anything wrong with the "virus" post the other day, especially since it clearly was identified by its Subject header. 

Like most conficts, this latest one is sparked from a misunderstanding and 
fanned to life by heated rhetoric. Case in point, this was not the first virus 
post that has been disseminated to the list over the last couple of years. It 
just never caused this much of a stir before. So, although Shari (who 
apparently joined the list sometime later) has every right to _question_ a 
possible breach of generally accepted netiquette, in fact, the netiquette 
concerning virus alerts on this list had already been semi-established. That's 
not to say it can't change. I know that I, for one, will give it a bit more 
thought before posting "off subject" in the future...well maybe :-) IMHO, this 
episode only points out (once again) the rather fluid nature of netiquette that 
often precludes any hard and fast dictates within a particular foram. 

I would humbly suggest that, we all try to be a little less confrontational 
with our posts. In particular, (and only if someone really feels the need to be 
an ... uhmmm, terse) take any statements that might be construed as 
personnel attacks or insulting off-line (some of the responses to Shari 
certainly fall in this catagory as did several of the posts-by and responses-to 
Kawika). I think, in this respect, we need only to take a cue from the general 
conduct and demeanor expected of the sekitori we all admire...yeah, right...
these guys try to rearrange each others faces at the tachiai:-p. But, you all
know what I mean.

BTY, I applaud both Titos' and Sharis' more or less restrained responses thus 
far. Also, I do hope there is no loss or even throttling back of contributions 
by ANYONE over this.

Nuff said...by me anyways :-)

-Steve