[Town Meeting] Clarification on "no discussion" rule

[Rich Carreiro]

Sorry for yet another meta-post, but apparently there's some confusion
about the "no discussion" rule.

The rule does NOT mean that posts to the list cannot express an
opinion on an article, recommended vote, etc.  As I said before, the
list is for the types of things that are left on TMMs' chairs -- and
those things certainly do express opinions, often strongly.

The intent of the "no discussion" rule is to prevent discussion/debate
*on this list*.  The idea is that there should not be back-and-forth
(i.e. posts directly responding to other posts) on this list.  Again,
that does *not* mean that things posted to the list cannot contain
opinion/advocacy.

The reason for the rule is that when my list administrator predecessor
started this list, some people expressed concern to him that if
discussion/debate were allowed on the list, TMMs without the
time/money/interest to be online would be left out of the loop and not
be on an equal footing with those TMMs who did have the
time/money/interest to be online.  Therefore, he decided to make the
list a distribution list, and when I took over administration of the
list, I continued his policy in that regard.

-- 
Rich Carreiro                            rlcarr at rlcarr.com