[Reader-list] Tag & Bag, No It Doesn't Work

[Naeem Mohaiemen]

Nishant wrote:
>using the freedom of the space to abuse and hurl insults
>hijacking other threads or responses for their own personal good

Also:

1. Continuing to post nonstop on the same topic again and again
(almost like a password-crack spider program on autopilot) even when
no one is responding.
2. The mind-numbing level of Indo-centrism of these troll attacks,
which have drowned out all other topics, regions, countries, or
anything else. I wonder why any non-Indian should even bother to be on
Sarai any more, but that was not the initial focus based on which we
were invited/joined.

>tagging
>flagging

The only issue with filtering is that it doesn't work if we are
subscribed to Sarai in digest mode. In that case the sender is always
readerlist and then we have to go through all the posts in the Digest.

radhikarajen replied:
> Without even reading the thought and total rejection of any thoughts shows only the typical "intellectual" mindset of the leftist idealogy where as long as you are yes men you are with them or otherwise you are not theirs, such become others. ?

But the situation is not comparable. No one is asking for yes men or
to be "with us".  The discussion is about a group of 5-8 individuals
who are posting nonstop at absurd volumes and drowning out all other
discussions/topics on the list, and in fact forcing people to leave
the mailing list. With the world awash in mailing lists, and the
average person maybe subscribed to at least 10 mailing lists, if one
list suddenly starts generating 20+ posts a day and 19 of those are on
a debate that you are either not interested in, or not able to
participate in, or just choosing to opt out of with all respect for
the subject, and still the barrage continues day after day, then many
people will in the end choose to hit "unsubscribe" and that would be a
shame for the community of Sarai.

In 1992, in the green vax terminal days, there used to be one usenet
bulletin board called soc.culture.bangladesh. The gathering of people
in terms of class, background, location was unprecedented and I've
never found a similar community since.  Anyway, sometime in 1996, an
acrimonious battle broke out about the ongoing occupation of
Chittagong Hill Tracts in Bangladesh and the debate rose to such nasty
levels that in the end the scb community disintegrated. As Rana
Dasgupta pointed out at the beginning of this flame war, took years to
build up, but takes only a moment to destroy.