I wrote this reply to Matthew Landry, who raised some complaints about the direction of this list, the role of the "leaders," and so on. I sent it to him personally, so as not to add to the already heavy volume of stuff on this list, especially the complaints of the last few days. I think the term "leader" is inappropriate. Several of us got the group rolling a little over a year ago, but the anarchic nature of the mailing list (source of strengths as well as weaknesses). In Matthew's post he on the one hand blasts the elitist attitude of Eric Hughes and myself while in the next paragraph blasting the lack of action taken by the "leaders" to control flames and set up systems to help newcomers. Anyway, I enjoyed a political piece Matthew wrote a couple of weeks or so ago, and I told him this. So his piece tonight (2:30 a.m) merited a response. And though some of you are no doubt sick of seeing these issues debated, I've decided to forward my letter to him to all of you, as I think some points need to be made. I've removed one or two sentences from the version I mailed to Matthew. Forwarded message: