Dealing with unnecessary activities [Re: Address of ISO 3166 mailinglist]

William Overington WOverington at ngo.globalnet.co.uk
Thu Jun 5 07:24:29 CEST 2003


John Clews wrote as follows.

> Marion - it must be extremely clear to you by now that members of this
list are clearly _not_ interested in these issues.

As you purport to state what members of this list are interested in, I feel
it correct to state that I am a member of this list and have been reading
with interest the posts made by Marion and by others.

> I - and many others - are feeling that we are wasting time on things which
are not the subject of this list.

Many?  Who knows!  However, even if many, many is not all, which was the
claim being made.  Even if most, then the concept of the rights of
minorities needs to be respected.

Also, recently there was a moderator comment which stated as follows.

> If you have nothing to contribute to the specific discussion at hand, I
recommend that you do not waste the time of the mailing list readers.

I thought that first the following question should have been asked and an
opportunity provided for an answer to be provided.

"Do you feel that your posts contribute to the specific discussion at hand
and, if so, could you please explain your reasons for so thinking?"

I also wondered whether the country where the comment was made is a
signatory of the European Convention of Human Rights.  Such documents are
not just bits of paper for lawyers to discuss at seminars!

However, that comment was from the moderator.  I have noticed that in
various mail lists there often seems to be one or more people keen to say
what everybody or most people think and feel without asking them, yet are
not the moderator.  If someone expresses his or her own comment on something
then that is one thing, to start saying what members of the list are not
interested in is quite another.

William Overington

5 June 2003












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