Still OT: list charter -- let's not (was Re: [OT] Troubleshooting ATA Drives..)

[vrs]

From: "Teo Zenios" <teoz at neo.rr.com>
> Why not bite the bullit and pick a Day, Month, And Year for what is
> "classic" and be done with it. You have a 10 year rule now with 100
> exceptions that are older then 10 years but nobody wants on the list.
Maybe
> the core people here only care about mainframes from the 60's-70's, if so
> then just say so and be done with it. I can think of quite a few systems
> made in the 80's that have much newer equipment added to them (including
ATA
> HD's) for functionality. When you keep older systems running with newer
> hardware where can you turn for help?

Let's *not* go down the rat-hole again discussing what should or should not
be on topic.  That has been done many times, and fairly recently.  It is
clear that a lot of list members like the way "off topic" has been handled
here historically.

That said, I want to put in a vote *against* the kind of severe "lets stay
on topic" attitude that Sellam's comment evidenced.  I think that is simply
the wrong solution to the problem of over-worked and underpaid moderators
and list maintainers.  The solution to that problem is to get more people
involved.  (I can volunteer to help filter for cctech, if desired.)

For my particular hobby of fiddling with PDP-8 computers, at least, there
are numerous forums to talk about them, but they are all essentially dead,
because there is no community there.  We need to walk a line where the
topics are mostly related to classic computers in some way, but leave
ourselves some slack to "hang out", as well.  IMO, that is why this list is
more active and interesting than those other forums (and why we keep coming
back).

    Vince