It does seem unfortunate that we seem to have to go through this
fire drill every few months. Look...the reality is, we manage to go
through 500 or so messages a day (well, *I* go through them), and very
rarely, in ALL the discussion and speculation, does anything come close
to being a story idea. As I commented on GEnie, at 500 messages a day,
seven days a week (3500 messages a week, counting all the various
services I'm on), this has only become a problem *five times*.

But five times is five times, and it never hurts to put out a
reminder...because it's due to those reminders that it HAS been only five
times. Absent those reminders, it would've been more, that you can count
on.

No one is here begruding the rights of people to speculate and
discuss, least of all me. You don't generally see me out here pounding
down on people...the discussions here are very freewheeling, which is as
it should be. This is the one little area that I ask be set aside, and
I just don't see it as a problem.

And I *do* wish that people wouldn't get bogged down in the legalities
of all this. On one level, while that's the core reason I made the
request in the first place, what it comes down to is just courtesy. I am
here for hours each day, unlike any other TV producer, every day, and all
I ask, as a courtesy, is no story ideas being posted. When did we as a
culture hit a point where a request as a courtesy was no longer valid,
and everything had to be accompanied by legalistic wrangling and court
orders?

I ask this one thing as a favor, in return for the hours spent here.
Is this really so great a burden? If people want to discuss story ideas,
or come up with their own stories, all they have to do is set up a
private mailing list to which I don't have access, and they can do so to
their heart's content. All I ask is that you don't do it where I can see
it.

jms