Mark Watson [email removed] writes:
> Finally, can I ask the person who submitted the very long non
> Traveller PBEM description please to desist. I know that I am in a
> minority in that I actually pay for my traffic, but if we do go off on
> a tangent I would prefer it to be brief. Sorry if this is not the
> majority view, but it is mine (maybe a ruling, James?)
I assume you are referring to Archive-Message-Number 5073 by Quincey
Kozial. I appreciate you stating your opinion (indeed, thanks for all
your ideas and comments on the TML!). However, I feel compelled to
defend Quincy's posting as a reasonable interpretation of the TML
guidelines. The official ruling as it stands is in the TML Orientation
message everyone gets when they sign up for the TML:
DESCRIPTION OF THE LIST
This list exists to discuss Game Designer's Workshop's TRAVELLER Science
Fiction Role Playing System (what a mouthful), including all derivative
games and rulesets (Traveller 2300, MegaTraveller, Striker, Azhanti High
Lightning, etc). Discussion is intended to be unlimited and to people
with a broad base of familiarity with Traveller. Subscribers can
exchange programs, news bulletins, new "rules", war stories, questions
at any level of expertise, answers, etc; or just listen.
Also there are a number of you out there (you know who you are), who are
interested primarily in other gaming systems, but want to transfer
concepts embodied in Traveller to other systems. Discussion about other
SFRP games is encouraged, but personally I wouldn't want them to greatly
overwhelm the Traveller discussion. If a need appears for a
general-purpose SFRP list, I will avidly support anyone else's trying to
organize it.
In my opinion, tangential discussion is okay, as long as it doesn't
overwhelm the Traveller discussion. As long as non-Traveller traffic is
less than 30% or so of the list's volume over a month's time or so, I
will choose NOT to restrict this discussion.
I realize this is probably less strict than you would wish, Mark, but
trust me when I say that large non-Traveller postings of the sort Quincy
posted are few and far between. The largest "bandwidth wasters" that
most people complain about to me as admin are:
1) "not-my-favorite-game" discussions (ex: player of 2300AD
decries seeing MegaTraveller-specific posts)
2) general science discussion (like planetary geology, physics
discussions)
3) large postings (that's why all the short postings less than
6K in size appear first in the digest)
4) ship designs (that's why I sort them down to the very end of
each digest)
Another big complaint is that I don't truncate the
I-Have-Recieved-Your-Posting-And-Will-Deliver-It message that the
digester sends back to TML posters -- this results in higher bills for
those that pay for email by the byte. I'm sensitive to this issue, but
it is inconvenient for me to work on it at this time -- it *is* at the
top of my "future file" though.
Thanks for your comments. I'd be happy to continue this discussion if
this answer is not satisfactory.
James
__ __/ / / Internet Traveller Mailing List, Administrator
/ / / / / James T. Perkins in Eugene, Oregon, USA
__/ __/__/__/ _____/ [email removed]