[ausev] Off-topic policy, etc, was: Steam power

[Chris Robison]

On Thu, May 17, 2007 11:10 pm, John Rumsey wrote:

> Anyone who wants can contact me directly at
> beesidemeusa at yahoo.co.uk so as to not upset Mr. Choate. Those of you who
> have responded to my idea I will also contact directly, so as to not
> further annoy the openminded Mr. Choate.

There was a time when this group was much smaller and traffic on this list
not so heavy, when offtopic discussions were not so much of a big deal. As
such, we've never really enforced any particular topic policy here in the
past, but I agree that we've now gotten large enough to do so. We've
already weathered storms of folks unsubscribing in the past year, getting
irritated at the volume on this list. The least we can do is ensure that
our members' mailboxes are only being barraged with discussion topics they
knowingly signed up for. This is, in essence, how to buy or convert an EV,
how they work, how to take care of them, and why they're a worthwhile
idea.

Again, I think I can speak for most folks here in inviting discussion
about the electric portion of your project, as that would be of general
interest to our members and it is something about which we could actually
be of help. But beyond that, unrelated topics are tantamount to
unsolicited email for our members. As an extreme example of this issue, on
the EVDL (http://evdl.org) the traffic and subscription count are much
higher, so even more vigilance is required of their moderator. Fortunately
I doubt our list will ever require that level of control.

I think the two officers of AustinEV who have now asked you to stay
on-topic have done so politely and in the best interests of those
subscribed to this list. I as the third officer now do the same. Please be
considerate of our members.

Thanks,
  --chris