Fiona Moore wrote:

Similarly, I don't necessarily find Avon Lust inappropriate for discussion on Lysator (I should hope not, since I've been carrying on the slash thread :)...), just not always to my taste, or the taste of others. However, nobody has suggested that people who wish to carry on with these uninterrupted are fascist old stick-in-the-muds out to ruin everyone's fun.

Excuse me, perhaps my copies of relevant messages got lost in cyberspace, but don't you suppose that the reason no one had suggested anything about those people is because they *don't exist*?

Because NO ONE complained about serious comments "interrupting" humorous threads. NO ONE claimed humorous threads were so delicate that they withered and died if anyone dared make a serious side point. NO ONE has said that those who can't add to the joke should just butt out or change the subject line or leave us alone or made any other comment to imply that those serious posts would be anything other than welcome. All of the attempts to control the posting behavior of other people have come from those trying to 'protect' their serious threads.

The "You'd flame us if we did it to you" defense was not a report of it having happened (and I sincerely doubt it ever has) but merely a prediction by one of the "leave our serious threads alone" members. Note that all the responses to that post from the other side were of the "Are you kidding?" and other "no, we wouldn't" flavors.

The point I wanted to make in my response to Annie might be better expressed as: "Why should it be more appropriate to carry on with an Avon Lust thread uninterrupted than to carry on with a Serious thread uninterrupted?" Both have their place, and *that* is what I want recognised. I just want equal rights for academics... :)

It wouldn't be "more appropriate"....But no one except your side has ever suggested that an Avon Lust or any other light hearted thread SHOULD be uninterrupted. The pro-humor side utterly and honestly don't mind. Go ahead, respond to the next post about Avon's red leather trousers with a discussion of the morality of breeding animals to slaughter them. Debate the chemistry of the dyes that would produce that particular shade of read. Give us a comparison of the development of tanning techniques from six different civilizations. Speculate on the continued existence of sweat shots in the garment industry, and whether mutoids or deltas occupy them. It won't bother us a bit. If what you say is interesting, we may join in and create a sidethread. If it's boring, we'll hit delete. If it's ridiculous, well, it will give us something new to joke about. Why can't the 'serious thread' people react the same way?

This 'reciprocal desire' on the part of those who indulge in humorous thread to have those thread left untainted simply doesn't exist. It's a straw man invented or imagined by those who want their serious thread unsullied.

What we (the joking rabble) have been saying all along is that EVERY MEMBER of the list has a right to reply to EVERY POST on the list in the manner s/he sees fit, so long as they abide by the rules Calle laid out in the FAQ. There's no need to ask for "equal rights for academics" -- you already have it.

Susan Beth (susanbeth33@mindspring.com)