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[Ausloco] Ausloco postings

G'day Auslocoer's,
it is becoming obvious that some Ausloco members are under the (mistaken) impression that Auslcoco is a general discussion newsgroup. It is not. Ausloco is S.I.G. (Special Interest Group). Ausloco exists to discuss present, past and future motive power happenings, ie locomotives (steam, diesel, electric, and railcars).
This should be obvious from the name - AusLOCO.

Recently a contributor suggested that we go back to the "good old days" whereby if you received something that was "off topic" all you had to do was delete the email in question. While this is  a fair idea for some, for others it is the very reason that we have lost valued contributors, Mark C. from Adelaide for example. 

Many people have become interested in other groups that have been started. Some people seem to think that these lists are the "holy grail" of mailing lists. While it is not our place to promote these private and invitation only groups, they do exist and by the recent email from a Ausloco contributor it is obvious that these groups also suffer from nonsense and off topic postings. We would also like to apologise to anyone who was offended by this email, however, it proved a valuable point that no matter what the group, no matter how "tight" the rules are, you will still get people posting unwanted garbage.

We would also like to point out that we live in a democracy and people are *mostly* free to do as they please. We can not force them to contribute to Ausloco if they don't wish to do so.
We have contacted several previous valued contributors, and asked them to continue postings.

Danny (Exeter) left because he read (and misinterpreted) an email addressed to someone else.
He has been contacted several times, asking him to continue his interesting Exeter postings, but we have had no reply.

Peter D. (Parkes area) Busy with work.

Steve D. (Melbourne) Busy with work.

Justin C. (Adelaide) Busy. 

Mark C. (Adelaide) Left under a previous administartor, due to the continued off topic postings to Ausloco. Which of course had NOTHING to do with the administrator at the time, and had EVERYTHING to do with the fact of people posting off topic items.

Alan H. (Echuca) now contributes to another gorup, we have asked him to keep contributing, but we have had no reply.

There is also a problem in that many list members (myself included) are in the rail industry, and any comments may seem to be damaging to our employers, which has recently lead to a couple of contributors having to be careful with how much and what they say on a public forum like Ausloco.
It is an unfortunate fact that some of us have divided loyalties, to our employer and to our hobby, which may sometimes conflict.

 Any of these people are more than welcome to continue their postings to Ausloco, as are any other people who have something to contribute regarding locomotives. We would also welcome any contributions of locomotive related material from any of the lesser reported staes, eg Western Australia, Tasmania etc.

If people stick to the reason that Ausloco was set up in the first place, we wouldnt be having problems with people leaving/not posting. If people do contribute off topic postings, we generally get blasted by others for allowing this to happen, if we do ask people to refrain 
from off topic psotings, we get blasted from them. What are we supposed to do? Previous administrators have tried the gentle approach, we are trying the not so gentle approach, none of it works. People still treat Ausloco like a general discussion newsgroup. We are 
damned if we do, and damned if we don't. If someone would like to tell us how to solve these problems, they are more than welcome to do so.

Can we get back to the loco's please guys?

Doug
c/o the Ausloco admin team

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