[EM] New policy: No personal criticisms in on-topic discussion

[MIKE OSSIPOFF]

It's been suggested to me that if there's someone to whom I can' t reply 
politely, then I shouldn't reply to them at all. I'm going to take that 
advice. I've quit replying to Paul, and I'm going to quit replying to James 
and Russ.

Sure, that's partly because there's so much objection to personal criticism, 
but I'm making that choice just as much because replying to people like that 
isn't a productive use of my time.

That new politeness policy only applies to on-topic discussion, not to posts 
of which I'm the topic. And my pledge to not reply to those llistmembers 
applies only to on-topic posts. For instance, if I'm the topic, or if 
politics is the topic, this non-reply pledge doesn't apply.

And of course if I made that declaration about not replying to certain 
people after they'd posted messages that I haven't replied to yet, then it 
could seem as if I was using that as an evasion to avoid replying to those 
messages, as if those messages said something irrefutable. For that reason 
I'm going to reply to one more message from each of those two.

My reply to James is a reply to a message from last month. My reply to Russ 
is to a message from about half a week ago. It will be posted maybe in a few 
days, or maybe in a few weeks.

That reply to James will be posted today.

Mike Ossipoff

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