From: Paul Borghese (pborghese@groupstudy.com)
Date: Mon Oct 06 2008 - 15:30:09 ART
Everyone is welcome to participate on the list; I simply ask the integrity
of the list be respected.
In July, Scott was asked to change one line in a 14 line signature, which
had just recently been added. Throughout the years I have asked other
vendors to do the same, and it is simply unfair to have one standard for
Scott, and a second standard for everyone else. One line is a small,
reasonable request. Others have done it without second thought. I have
included background information at the bottom of this email detailing the
request and why it was made.
For three months now I have been receiving e-mails from other vendors asking
why he is getting favorable treatment. This is a big issue. There are a
number of superstars on the list. They post because it allows them to
advertise themselves and their skills to the community at large. If there
is a perception that one person over every other is receiving favorable
treatment, we will loose every superstar on the list.
What makes this list great is you get to hear numerous opinions on a subject
and access to the best minds in the industry. There is no other website on
the internet that gives you access to the talent we have at GroupStudy. I
would like to keep it that way.
It was only a matter of time before this issue was made public, which
happened when an observant person called him out on it.
Scott is more than welcome to stay, and I hope he does. So the issue may now
be solved. I just wish it did not take over two months and such a public
disclosure.
If you are interested I will now give a little background on the issue and
why the request was made.
I started GroupStudy 10 years ago last month. A few days after its
creation, the list was flooded with people trying to move members from
GroupStudy to their own list. I thought, wow that seems quite rude. Kinda
like going to a party and encouraging everyone to leave the party and join
your party.
Over the next few months it happened surprisingly often. I eventually asked
someone who had a much bigger list then GroupStudy (at the time) what to do.
The response was "Welcome to the mailing list business, this is only the
beginning. You are going to need to learn how to filter, and don't even
thing about going on vacation because it never stops". Boy was he right!
Over the years I have seen everything you could imagine. A common problem
was someone would create a list; then subscribe GroupStudy to the list thus
making all postings on GroupStudy post to their list. The problem was, this
created a loop and the entire thing would blow up! If you go back through
the archives, you will see discussions of me fighting the loops. Thus I
created more and more custom software to deal with these issues. If you
ever hear me say the "circuit breakers" went off, it is because the software
that is designed to prevent loops and spam messages.
I came to the believe that posting messages on GroupStudy advertising
competing discussion groups can only be damaging to GroupStudy, and started
filtering those messages.
A few years later, a very well known and respected vendor, ccbootcamp,
started their own discussion group. They had a little creative banner ad
showing a Pac-Man character eating the GroupStudy logo. They were the only
vendor at the time and I did not want to loose their participation on the
list. So I told the owner they were more then welcome to continue
participating on the list, I simply request they do not advertise their
pac-man eating list on my humble little list. The response was quite
positive saying they understood and would find it distasteful to go on
someone's list and do as such.
To this day, if you write a private e-mail to Brad Ellis, you receive a
response with a different signature then what he sends on GroupStudy. I
imagine that is a pain, but I thank him for it.
Thus the policy was set.
Over the years other vendors started propping up, each with their own
support site and discussion groups designed to be the next big GroupStudy
killer and obtain names and addresses they can use for marketing. IP Expert
creates a new one virtually every week :-). But they all understand it
would be distasteful to advertise their list on GroupStudy and respectfully
modify their footers when posting on GroupStudy.
So in July, I asked Scott to give me the same courtesy. He was well aware
of the request from his IP Expert days. If you go back and read his
postings through July, August, and September you will see the response.
Frankly I think the request is quite trivial and amounted to removing one
line in a signature that was only recently added.
I work hard on this list and ask for very little from the members. I simply
ask my work not be abused.
Paul
-----Original Message-----
From: nobody@groupstudy.com [mailto:nobody@groupstudy.com] On Behalf Of Gary
Duncanson
Sent: Monday, October 06, 2008 1:53 PM
To: Cisco certification
Subject: Scott Free?
Nothing on the list from Mr Morris today. Has he been banned?
Gary
Blogs and organic groups at http://www.ccie.net
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