[Taxacom] Reality check - lies and hate by academic fraud Wolfgang Wuster on Wikipedia!

[Weakley, Alan]

Jim has not proposed banning anyone (other than as a last resort) -- "moderating" is a moderate and appropriate response to what I and many others (I am sure) consider a misuse of the list.  

Some of Ray Hoser's posts have raised interesting points about the ICZN (and by extension the ICN), "regulation" of nomenclature, and even "taxonomic rivalries"; I'll happily read (or at least glance at) anyone's (including his) posts that are ON TOPIC for this listserv.  Simple use of the delete button is appropriate for a string of only peripheral interest that goes on beyond one's interest level.   That is not what has been going on here, though.  There is a limit to what a listserv should and can tolerate and remain a useful vehicle for discussion of professional topics.  Australian legal cases involving the display of de-venomized snakes are not on topic, nor whether someone's daughters were allegedly treated inappropriately by police.  Hoser may or may not have been ill-used by "Wuster's gang" but the only relevant topics for this listserv relate to actual issues about taxonomy and nomenclature.  Discussions of the merits and demerits of proposals related to the ICZN are ON TOPIC, and Hoser, Wuster, and any other member should be welcome to weigh in on those, without ad hominem attacks.  

If members were repeatedly posting sales notices for their saleboat, or porn links, or non-taxonomically-related tirades against Tea Party Republicans, Ed Milliband, the UN, or the pope -- would anyone say "just use the delete button"?  Keeping the listserv minimally and broadly "on topic" is necessary and appropriate; it is not censorship.     
  


-----Original Message-----
From: taxacom-bounces at mailman.nhm.ku.edu [mailto:taxacom-bounces at mailman.nhm.ku.edu] On Behalf Of Dan Lahr
Sent: Thursday, October 10, 2013 10:36 AM
To: John Grehan
Cc: TaxaCom
Subject: Re: [Taxacom] Reality check - lies and hate by academic fraud Wolfgang Wuster on Wikipedia!

+1 to John.

Ignoring is superior to banning, IMHO. Not replying or not giving any attention to spammers, flammers, is also a very effective way to get them to quiet down. People need to learn to use filters, sorters, and all of the wonderful tools sitting right there inside your browser/email viewer.

BUT, the owners of the list have decided, hence we should just abide.

cheerio,
__________________________________
Daniel J. G. Lahr
PhD, Assist. Prof.
Dept of Zoology, Univ. of Sao Paulo, Brazil Office number: + 55 (11) 3091 0948



On Thu, Oct 10, 2013 at 11:26 AM, John Grehan <calabar.john at gmail.com>wrote:

> Raymond's main transgression seems to me) to be that he continues to 
> use this venue to disparage various colleagues in a repetitive and 
> uninformative manner. I always worry about calls to ban something 
> (after all the prestigious journal Systematic Biology has allowed 
> publications effectively calling for the banning of panbiogeography). 
> Rather than banning, why not use the delete button or a sorting 
> function? At various times subscribers on this list have got tired of 
> a particular topic and want the thread to end while others want to 
> continue. Any list is not going to make everyone happy all of the 
> time. There are often topics discussed at great length on this list 
> that do not interest me. But I do not complain about that as they are 
> of interest to others. So I just delete - only takes a few seconds. 
> There are list members who use this for some of my postings and that 
> is quite ok with me. Better than banning postings or burning books.
>
> John Grehan
>
_______________________________________________
Taxacom Mailing List
Taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu
http://mailman.nhm.ku.edu/mailman/listinfo/taxacom

The Taxacom Archive back to 1992 may be searched with either of these methods:

(1) by visiting http://taxacom.markmail.org

(2) a Google search specified as:  site:mailman.nhm.ku.edu/pipermail/taxacom  your search terms here

Celebrating 26 years of Taxacom in 2013.