Hello, there, boys and girls and all the ships at sea. It's Seldom Seen Slim, your tired head handlebar holder with a few words -- of wisdom, of chatter -- whatever.
It's about Mr. Ratliff and his posts. First of all -- I'm tired because Nancy and I spent a few days driving to and from eastern Pennsylvania earlier this week. During that trip I had some time and looked through a few books on copyright rules and such -- and have come to the decision that when any of you -- Franklin Ratliff included -- post entire pages of copied books, articles, or whatever -- it's probably legally okay. That is, as long as it is not likely to be detrimental to the potential market for the work (i.e., because you saw it here you will not need to go buy a copy for yourself), as long as it is for non-profit educational purposes, and a bunch of other stuff. So it's legally okay. But --
I would be really happy if you didn't take up pages and pages of the topic du jour and post this kind of stuff -- put it elsewhere and let those who might want to see it go find it. Let's see -- how do we do that? Unh, I'll soon invent a whole new section for this -- maybe I'll call it "History and research and other long-posts that don't need to be right in front of everyone" or maybe I'll find a long and boring title for the section. If Mr. Ratliff or any of you feel it's needful to post pages of text -- put 'em in that section. If the stuff you want to post happens to be relevant to a topic that's being actively discussed -- post the long text in the "History..." section and put a note in the topic under discussion -- a note saying "go to the "History..." section to see a long and maybe boring dissertation relating to this topic". Not a link -- a note. Got that? A link might end up being an invitation for your computer to put the whole danged thing on the post, and we wouldn't be any better off. JUST A NOTE TELLING FOLKS WHERE TO LOOK!!!!!
I want to promote active and entertaining discussion on this site. There have been lots of words in favor of Mr. Ratliff's presence -- and many that don't want it. The result -- I've got to invent a new rule and a new category. So -- Ratliff (note that I've dropped the honorific) has made this site a little less open than before by putting more stuff up here than is welcome. Now everyone has to follow the new rule - sorry. I'll have to be kind of cruel here and say that if I (or any of the moderators -- you folks are welcome to do this, too) see any full-page posts that should be in the new section -- zoom 'em off to there. You're welcome to leave a note saying where the stuff went, or if you don't -- well, fine. But when there's a full page -- somebody, including me, should make it go away to "History..." as quickly as possible. That's likely to train us all to post the stuff where it belongs.
I'll ask us all to live by this policy for a while -- maybe a week or two. If it works, fine, we've sort of fixed a problem. If it doesn't, and anyone -- especially Mr. Ratliff -- continues to post long copies of published works -- I'll block that poster so he can't post anything.
That's enough for now. I sure hope that those of you that have posted saying you'll quit using landracing.com for the time being -- will see this and accept it as a positive step towards making the site ever-more inviting to all. Please feel free to let me know your feelings -- whether in a post here or in a note to my email address.
Deep Enough! I'm going out to watch the paint dry on the shutters.
