[volunteers] On hamburgers

[Rick Moen]

Quoting Alvin Oga (alvin at mail.Linux-Consulting.com):

> yup ... what is his email addy anyway, so he can be included
> in these discussions

I have no idea if Duncan feels like giving out his personal contact
information freely, so I'll not decide on his behalf.  (I certainly
give mine out publicly, and my cellular 'phone number's even on my 
_Web pages_, but other people often have very different ideas.)

On the other hand, I _can_ in good conscience tell you that searching
for "Duncan MacKinnon" + "San Francisco" does bring up a correct hit on the
first page of Google results, i.e., one that includes his current e-mail
address.  (Hint:  It's not at substance.com, any more, as he sold off
that domain a few years ago.)  But you'll need to do your own footwork.

> --- picnic releated stuff shold be posted to the linux picnic mailing list
>     as the picnic volunteers are in that list ... not this 
>     "secret" svlug mailing list

1.  I was actually posting _SVLUG_-related stuff here: informing
    SVLUG's volunteers about what had been posted elsewhere.
    So, no, my posting that here was exactly appropriate.

2.  However, if you see fit to forward elsewhere my postings to this thread.
    I have no personal objection -- though it'd be a really good idea
    for you to make sure the traffic is welcome (and please do not claim
    you're posting on my behalf).

3.  _This_ is a secret mailing list?  You're a very funny man, Alvin.

    This mailing list is advertised everywhere that our mailing lists are
    mentioned, is completely public, has a membership roster open
    to everyone on it, is unmoderated, and is explicitly the place where 
    SVLUG members (which means, effectively, everyone) can get complete,
    straight answers on all aspects of how our mailing lists are run -- 
    per my policy of running a a maximally open operation.[0]  You really 
    can't get less secret than that.

    That _other_ mailing list you're referring to has:
    (a) strictly private archives
    (b) roster kept invisible to the membership
    (c) long set of official prohibitions including but not limited to 
        a threat of banning against anyone who posts mailing list traffic 
        to elsewhere (less "restricted distribution")[1].

    (There's also a past history of Ian as listadmin acting on his own,
    and without informing the list membership, to put people on moderated
    status and/or throw them off the list.  However, I have no idea if 
    this has recurred lately, and no special reason to think it has --
    and he's allegedly no longer the sole listadmin.)


[0] Or, as I sometimes phrase it, "No more backroom bullshit".  Periods
of SVLUG history when backroom bullshit _was_ common made it possible
for you to convince people, and even me up through last September, that
you had been clandestinely banned from posting to any SVLUG mailing list
just because of alleged personal antagonism from Marc Merlin -- even
though you showed no evidence, I could find no such mechanism, and you
_were_, in fact, able to post freely once you tried.

In part because of your claim of persecution, I cleaned house and made
sure there were no such backstabs built into the software configuration.
I also reported here on the complete contents of MTA and Mailman filter
entries, making sure in full view of the membership that they are
spam-only.  I also made sure people knew that SVLUG list administration
would be kept as an open process, accountable to the membership, and
that nothing would be kept behind closed doors.  

Last, I checked with Marc Merlin, and got the _real_ story:  You'd
set up your system to reject all mail from _him_ and so he found that he
could not send you listadmin mail -- so he put you on the autoreject
list for some months.  Moral:  It's really stupid to killfile the listadmin.

If *I* ever feel I have to take such a listadmin measure, I'd mention the 
fact (and the reason) here, so that the matter is documented for the
membership and not subject to rumour and misinformation.


[1] This is part of the aforementioned 
http://www.linuxpicnic.org/twiki/bin/view/Volunteers/MailListEtiquette , 
and is among the items listed as "Actionable Rules", which "will result
in an action from the mail list administrators, ranging from a warning
to moderating a subscriber's messages, to expulsion from the list,"
(Again, the allegedly participating Linux user groups have absolutely no
say in this matter:  The mailing list's policy was written and is
applied by Sbay alone.)