i'm never sure what to do about these posts. i'd like to believe that they help someone, and i've never said anything to Ron about it for that reason. But if the general consensus is that this should only be in the listings, if allowed at all, then i'm all for it.

Unfortunately, Tribe's event interface isn't the most optimal, hence cross posting more often than not hits various tribes that have a large overlap of membership. As a poster, one wants to get to everyone but is forced to also how the same ad to many people. While I too find it annoying, I'm willing to deal with it in order to help it get to those who can use it. I wish there was a better way but I don't see it right now.

Ron,

thanks for your response, and we can absolutely talk about this more...

personally, i look at this from two perspectives -- as both user and moderator.

as a user, it doesn't really bother me to have this in the discussions because, as in any tribe i belong to, if i'm not interested in reading the topic, i don't. i may check it out, but it's really no skin off my back to ignore it. on top of that, this is an important topic and DOES relate to a lot of the people in this tribe on some level. but that's my personal experience, and i understand why Khrysso is bothered.

as a moderator, i would have to say that this is not a topic of discussion -- it is you posting a newsletter from your group in another group's forum, so technically it's Spam. at the very least it should be in the Listings area. if i went by most moderator's rules i should have immediately deleted it the first time you posted. other moderators would have blocked you from their tribes alltogether.

it would be nice to hear from more than two people on this, but if nobody except Khrysso has a problem, then i'm ok with letting it go on the basis that it relates to Queer life, but i think the suggestion that you have a tribe for ICP is a good one... and i wouldn't mind if you posted here that there are updates to your tribe.

Thank you for the thoughtful response. I think the repetitive posts in at least five of my tribes would be easier to take if I saw more participation from you in the on-topic discussions, but all I know of you (besides what can be seen in your profile, which I do visit from time to time to see who "this ICP guy" is) is that you're the guy who keeps posting the same periodical information that never seems to turn into discussions.

> I am here because one of the fastest growing demographics for HIV infections, again, is gay men between 18 and 24. I am sure there are some self-identified geeks in those ranks.

Hmmm... then it seems we have a marketing problem here: how to get the information most directly before the eyes of those who can benefit most from it? (It's difficult in any tribe to guess what its demographic is unless you look at every member's profile individually, if they even post their ages.)

Of course I don't expect that you're ignorant of the scope of the disease, but "queer" is a pretty scattershot way of focusing publicity on a demographic that includes an age range as narrow as six years or so. From a marketing standpoint, it's hardly focused at all.

> Any suggestions from the group other than go away?

Those are pretty black-and-white options: Send announcements at intervals regular enough to have been programmed to do it automatically or leave? Surely you can think more creatively than that.

> How do we reach out and save lives even if the discussion makes people uncomfortable?

What makes you think that the discussion makes people uncomfortable?

There's a *huge* difference between editorial decision-making and censorship: As a writer, I have received many a rejection-slip from editors who had no quarrel with the (usually impeccably copy-edited) content of what I've sent them--it just didn't fit their editorial needs at the moment, or I had misjudged their demographic or their house style traditions. Discomfort of the discussion doesn't play into my objections at all. I have worked as an AIDS educator myself.

Is your job really to save lives? Because you're working against *lots* more than simply lack of information: you're working against a culture of willful ignorance, instant gratification, and a profound sense of entitlement and privilege in a generation of de facto kids who are accustomed to living far beyond their means. *You* can't save many lives in the face of that. Granted, saving even one life would be worthwhile, but still, it's a burden nobody should have to live with as their life's mission, since there is no way of gauging the accomplishment of the mission. How many lives is enough?

> If going away is the only response that works for you, I am gone.

Hey, man, don't make it about me! I know from bitter experience that I'm not that effective a potentate...

> It is sad to me that simply posting an announcement in a group is enough to set people off.

You're mis-identifying the complaint. First, I don't know who's been "set off" by your posting--I never said *I* was, and I think that my complaint was presented in pretty civil language. I put effort into using feeling-language and non-accusatory, non-ad-hominem terms. Second, you didn't "simply" post *an* announcement. You *regularly* post virtually the same announcement *to the discussion threads* in *numerous* tribes, many of which I belong to.

The effect of this kind of broadcasting is that in a number of tribes, the last, I dunno, probably as many as ten threads have all been about ICP, and none of them have had any response. These, then, cannot properly be called "discussions." They are virtual handbills. Speaking to my own experience: my queer tribes are lots more important to me than most of my hundreds of other tribes, so when I see that there are new discussion threads to my queer tribes, I visit each one to see what's going on *and* to clear the "these-tribes-have-X-number-of-new-postings-to-them" entries from my tribes list. It's a matter of clearing my desk, so to speak.

So I visit each tribe, and see exactly the same announcement, which, except for the date, says exactly what the last X-number of announcements said. There is no way that the presence of ICP or its nature as a periodical will be missed in most of these tribes for a long, long time, and once you've opened one posting for one month, you've done enough to bookmark the link for as long as you own your computer.

I have dial-up--as *most* of the internet users in the world still do--and there is no such thing as casually scanning a bunch of tribes to clear them from the new-discussion-postings cluster for me: it *always* involves waiting. And my home page, which has my list of tribes with new postings, is the slowest page to load. So I have to wait five or six times, which actually means ten or 12 times, to get back to my home page *and* to go to the next tribe to read absolutely nothing new. It's sort of like finding another flyer for the new pizza shop stuck in your passenger-side windshield wiper every morning for a week when you leave the house.

> I see tons of announcements in these groups that don't interest me and I simply don't explore them further.

How nice for you, that discovering that you're uninterested without having to wait entire minutes sometimes for your home page to reload each time.

> It seems to me that these groups are dead and I don't think my ICP posts killed them off. I suspect they were dead to start with.

Perhaps so, but that's irrelevant to my objection to *your* practice.

> I am so sorry that things that are important to my geekhood are upsetting to yours.

a) That's a red herring. b) You can't apologize for my feelings. You can only apologize for your actions. Which you don't sound sincerely apologetic for. c) Playing the martyr neutralizes most of the sympathy you had gained from me.

Drama queen! (That, for the record, is my first ad hominem toward you.)

> Was there a list of geek qualifications that I missed?

d) Sarcasm isn't helping your cause. The sarcasm renders your initial apology pretty much null. You've just demonstrated my accusation that you're a drama queen.

> Could we discuss this topic further? I need your feedback.

Discussion, my ass! You sound a lot more like you need to grandstand.

Ray is the moderator and can do as he sees fit, but if I ever become the moderator of a tribe you're spamming, you and all but one of your threads *will* be gone, and not by your own volition.