a bit of administrivia

["Mickey P. Rowe" <mrowe@indiana.edu>]

George wrote:

> The dinosaur list moderator tells me I've been timed out again for
> sending too much crap to the list,

First, I'm not a moderator.  Second, George's timeout was in some
sense a mistake.  I didn't notice it until earlier this week, but AOL
uses the U.S.A.'s Eastern time zone when it timestamps messages
irrespective of the time zone from which the messages were sent.  As
such some messages George sent late at night (in his time zone) were
listed as having been sent early the next morning.  In enforcing the
new policy I want to use the calendar days experienced by individual
subscribers.  On George's calendar he was not over quota even though
he would have been had I used AOL's timestamps; I untimed him out as
soon as I could after discovering AOL's timestamping nuance, but for
some reason either listproc was comatose or connections between me and
USC were flaky, so some of George's messages may have been suppressed.
Ultimately that was not my intent and I apologize for any
inconvenience.

In other news, everyone knock off mentioning Creationism.  If I'd felt
hard nosed I could have timed out at least three of you already.  I've
been tolerant since most of you have been talking about the scientific
method rather than Creationism per se.  But I won't be tolerant if
this continues -- some of the statements made here would already be
good flame bait for any Creationist reading these messages, and I
don't want to see anything like that on this list.

Finally, I've received overwhelming support for my latest suggestions
for administrivia changes.  Stop attacking the personal
characteristics of individuals whether they are on the list or not.
Had the soon to be added policy changes been in effect, one or two of
you might have been sent to a corner for things written about
Feduccia.  Attack statements; that's fine.  But don't make disparaging
comments about individuals.  At best such comments provide a
distraction from the science we're all supposedly here to discuss...
Official policy changes will be announced when the adminstrative
message goes out next week.

--
Mickey Rowe     (mrowe@indiana.edu)