[AT] Happy New Year and state of the list address.

[Carl Gogol]

>From one old guy to the others-
This list, Spencer's, is doing reasonably well in keeping politics,
anti-government rants and personal attacks suppressed.  To think that fake
news and opinion would start to creep in and further confuse all of us is a
concern for everyone on the list. I think that is why Spencer wrote his
latest contribution.
Let me start to hone in our core beliefs by saying, and I think you can all
agree; Orange is the best tractor color there could ever be!  Once we all
know that this is the core belief of the list little else matters.

Now, fake news is another problem all together.  Could the new orange brands
of tractors be as good as the old one relative to their time?  There are
those who claim it to be true, I call it fake news and opinion disguised as
fact. 

Thank you Spencer for taking your time to keep this list running smoothly.
We all need to be sure our opinions don't cloud our ability to be honest
with our friends and even ourselves.

Sorry if I offended anyone's color in this post, but I just had to clarify
the facts for everyone.  I too have started to see some color confusion
creeping in as well as opinion disguised as fact on a number of subjects.

Carl, Manlius, NY



-----Original Message-----
From: at-bounces at lists.antique-tractor.com
[mailto:at-bounces at lists.antique-tractor.com] On Behalf Of Spencer Yost
Sent: Sunday, January 1, 2017 9:52 AM
To: Antique tractor email discussion group
Subject: [AT] Happy New Year and state of the list address.

First off:  Happy New Year!  I wish nothing but health, success, and
happiness for every one of you.

This will be an important year for us. I have a huge number of list friends
whom I dearly adore and enjoy being around with at shows throughout the
year. I believe we have built something substantial and important here over
the last 20+ years.  But we are getting older and no one younger is joining.
One of the ways we can hope to continue being relevant for younger folks is
to realize we are not selling antique tractors here. We are selling a
timeless sense of what is real and good about human nature, American manhood
and rural communities.

I cannot do a lot about that as list administrator, but you folks can:  one
way is to exercise control of some social media habits that I noticed have
crept onto the list, and one of them is people making whatever statement
they want and making any manner of spurious claims without any attribution,
footnoting or evidence. Recently there was a post claiming the iPhone
batteries were as bad as the Note 7 batteries.   I'm not defending Apple, as
that is not the point of this message. But since it speaks to the context of
my address and a great example of it let me just say I know a little bit
about technology and the statement  is untrue in many different ways. but
trying to paint Apple with the same brush and false paint simply because one
don't like them is a contradiction against any sense of what's factual or
real concerning the technology involved and is an example of a common social
media behavior: say anything and try to get it to stick. 


In short ATIS has always been a place of relevant and authoritative
knowledge. I don't want that to change so I don't want people bringing
really bad social media habits to the list, like fake news or
unsubstantiated accusations.  That's not what we sell here. That is not the
ATIS brand we all have carefully cultivated.

May our better angels guide us in the upcoming year. I truly wish that for
the list and the world - Happy New Year!


Spencer Yost

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