wrote in message
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Reggie Smithers wrote:

I think you are talking to the wrong person. JimH asked the question
and Chuck responded with his ideas.

--
Reggie
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If our unmoderated group is going to be a group, it is useful every so
often to hash out some understandings (no, not rules) about how the
majority of the group prefers to interact. It's a very democratic
process, (relax, small "d") :-) These discussions may be unpleasant
and they're only semi-topical, but unless there's a censor in place we
need to exercise self control and some general sense of the group's
expectations is important.

Graffiti. We used to have graffiti. Each of us would take a turn
walking up to the rec.boats wall and spraying the most outrageous thing
we could possible think of, and then stepping back while others
contended to outdo the first. No wonder we wound up with a messy wall,
no useful messages, two or three "gangs" instead of a group, and a
bunch of po'd people covered in paint.

The "dock talk" analogy that often surfaces has some merit, but can't
be directly applied. How many people pull up to a transient moorage or
yacht club dock and intentionally introduce topics of conversation
designed to make others angry or upset? How many of us call anybody
harsh names when we go boating, particularly total strangers?

Give the new atmosphere a few months, especially as spring comes on,
and it's my prediction that rec.boats will be busier than ever with
on-topic, interesting, boating related threads and posts. It took a
long time to put the group into the disrepair where it had been, and we
can't expect it to bloom immediately upon voluntarily reducing the
amount of "fertilizer" we dumped into the pot.

Some good analogies.