"JohnH" wrote in message
...
On Wed, 21 Dec 2005 08:26:11 -0500, "P Fritz"

wrote:


You are asking Keivn to THINK? ;-)


Our NG has become a chatroom.
No other way to define what has happened, when 90% or more of the
content is OT and 50% or more of the OT posts devolve into political
name calling and flame fests. Boats are probably mentioned more often
in a general chatroom, by accident, than they are here on rec.boats on
purpose.

I propose a 5 day challenge to the entire chatroom.

For five days, let's pretend we're a boating newsgroup.

That would be the remainder of today, the 20th, through Saturday the
24th.

During this period of time, I propose that the group of worst
offenders, self included, take the lead in this challenge by doing the
following things.

1. Refrain from launching any sort of political or religious thread.
2. Resist name calling and put personal feuds aside.
3. Resist the temptation to respond to any political threads trolled
through the NG
4. Launch a minimum of two boating-related threads (not required of
non-boaters)
5. Evaluate the effectiveness of this 5 day challenge on December 25


For this to work at all, I believe we need Harry, Basskisser, JimH,
John H, Doug Kanter, Skipper, NOYB, P.Fritz, and Smithers (under all
of
his 1000 names), to sign on. The occasional offenders, not mentioned
above, would need to participate as well. For this to work, anybody
who
elects to participate would have to be adult enough to ignore
violations by others rather than use those violations as a
justification or an excuse to resume OT trolling, flaming and
chatting.
Participants would need to assume responsibility for their own
behavior, and not allow it to be dictated by the bad actions of
others.

So the gauntlet is thrown. I'm in for the five days. Anybody else
willing to experiment to see whether the overall tone of the
chatroom/NG would change if a group of the worst offenders
modified their behavior here? If not, things will be at least slightly
better for five days while I personally follow the 5 guidelines.

It's solstice. The world is taking a new slant and the sun is coming
back (to the north).
Wouldn't this be an appropriate time to stop the decline of the NG and
bring a bit of boating sunshine back? It would be a holiday or
Christmas gift to the group, from the group, and for the group. :-)


Well, what do *you* think of Chuck's Challenge?

Not much, but then again I have not responded to any of the liebrals for
as long as I can remember......since they have long ago taken up residence
in my killfile.....I just don't find the need to "announce" it every other
day like harry. :-)


--
John H

**** May your Christmas be Spectacular!****
*****...and your New Year even Better!*****