For your pleasure, an extra dose of administrivia

[Mickey Rowe <rowe@psych.ucsb.edu>]

I'd originally intended to send this message last week, but due to
some technical difficulties and a bit of stupidity on my part, I fear
it was held up.  My apologies for the lack of complete timeliness.
Anyhoo... 

In light of recent difficulties we've had on the subject of
Creationism, we've made some modifications to the administrivia web
page.  The page also has a new home:

http://www.psych.ucsb.edu/~rowe/dinosaur-administrivia.html

If you have any inclination to see the new policy (or even if you
don't, but you think there's even a modest chance that you might feel
a need to write anything at all about Creationism at some point in the
future) please look at the above web page.  We've also added some
links in case you develop an interest in Creationism and want to know
where to find information or places to communicate about the subject.
For reasons outlined in the administrivia web page we will not
tolerate any discussion of it here.  As a final comment on this
subject, we have to admit to a bit of inconsistency on our part in
that last year I indicated in:

http://www.cmnh.org/fun/dinosaur-archive/1998May/msg00219.html

that you would not be timed out for responding to Creationist
messages.  Most of the people that we timed-out last week were timed
out after Mary explicitly shut down the threads on Kansas, so if
nothing else those individuals violated section 8h of the
administrative rules for the list and were treated accordingly.  Two
people, however, were timed out prior to Mary's shutting down the
thread.  We've closed the loophole that they should have slipped
through had we maintained consistency, but nevertheless we erred in
their treatment.  For that we apologize.  We cannot change the past,
but we can modify the future.  According to policy, a second
infraction of section 8c will result in your removal from the list.
We will expunge this incident from the permanent records of the two
individuals such that (although of course we would not condone any
such behavior) they may violate the rule of section 8c once and only
get another week-long timeout.

Further on the subject of non-tolerance, everyone *PLEASE* make sure
you understand our policies relating to the sale of fossils.  Since
people keep breaking the relevant rule (as two people had done in the
24 hours before I began composing this message last week), I am
planning to add more to the wording of that section soon.  In the mean
time, if you want to write to the list about anything that has
anything at all to do with exchanging fossils for money please clear
it with Mary and/or me before you send it to the list.

Let me also be clear on two more points.  You will be held accountable
to the rules of the list whether you agree with them or not.  If you
disagree with them, you may write directly to Mary or me to discuss
changing them, but we don't operate like appeals courts; you're not
going to change the rules by breaking them.  Second, if you see
someone else breaking a rule, don't presume that there were no
consequences just because nobody wrote to the list about it.  We have
generally decided not to write to the list about disciplinary actions
because a) we want to keep administrivia traffic low and b) making
such actions public has a tendency to make the penalized individuals
feel a need to restore face -- a no-win situation for all involved.
This means also that you must not assume that every message you
receive via the list is acceptable.  Please do not reach the erroneous
conclusion that just because somebody else sent a particular message
you can send similar messages with no repurcussions.  Each subscriber
is responsible for knowing the rules and conducting their behavior
accordingly.

Finally (since I think it's been two months since I last wrote this),
please make sure that you understand that this list was created
explicitly for the purpose of discussing dinosaur *science*.  That
means that, for instance, a message encouraging people to make up
"dinosaurs" that currently known data suggest did not exist is exactly
the sort of message that doesn't belong here.  Similarly, messages
about the intelligence of the populace (or lack thereof) or the
general carelessness of documentary producers do not belong here.
Please make sure that your messages are relevant to dinosaur science
or don't send them here.

Thanks for your cooperation.

Your humble list administrator,

-- 
Mickey Rowe     (rowe@psych.ucsb.edu)