Re: [Con Validas] URL block request from googlebot

[Christopher Faylor <cgf-use-the-mailinglist-please@sourceware.org>]

On Sun, Jan 11, 2015 at 09:05:06AM +0100, Gerald Pfeifer wrote:
>On Saturday 2014-12-20 20:46, Ian Lance Taylor wrote:
>> I haven't seen this kind of request before.  Any opinions?
>
>I've looked at this thrice over the course of a two weeks, and
>still am struggling.
>
>Since this is not about removing contents, just taking it off
>the search engine map with robots.txt, it's less problematic
>(and we would not "censor").  On the other hand, this posting
>really seems harmless enough and I don't understand.  On the
>third hand, such an approach sipmly does not scale.
>
>So, I'd not to it personally, though I would not complain bitterly 
>if someone else did.

FYI, Frank has already turned down the request but the person is now
asking for an explanation.

I am against doing it because:

1) I think the request is stupid and I have a hard time making myself do
things that I think are stupid when I'm not being paid to do so.

2) The slippery slope - if we do this for him then we have no reason not
to do it for everyone.  And, if we do this one thing then, IMO, it opens
up the door for more arguing about modifying mailing list posts.  They
aren't the same thing but I wouldn't want to have to spend any time at
all arguing that point.

cgf