Date: Sat, 26 Mar 2011 19:02:26 -0400
Reply-To: David Beierl <dbeierl@ATTGLOBAL.NET>
Sender: Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From: David Beierl <dbeierl@ATTGLOBAL.NET>
Subject: Re: Friday moderation discussion - Starting point
In-Reply-To: <F64E4C16A120A148A007EAAE525AC5162B8686FD@TK5EX14MBXC129.re
dmond.corp.microsoft.com>
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Note - speaking in my private capacity. :-)
At 02:00 PM 3/25/2011, Marius Strom wrote:
>I have a few comments around the "list" that don't really fit into
>any of the items below so I'll just enumerate it up here, and borrow
>from your text where relevant. I'll caveat all of this with the fact
>that I'm relatively new to the list (have only owned my Vanagon for
>361 days, but who's counting?).
>
>My sense is that the Vanagon list was created many years ago, during
>the time of 80x25 terminals.
Around '95 I think? I'm pretty sure we were at least up to 300-baud
DEC-writers by then. ;-)
> I think a lot of the historic moderation "guidelines" stem from
> the lists' history, and may not have been re-assessed since then.
> Perhaps this discussion is the time to start bringing some of these
> questions to the surface and making considerations of them. It also
> seems that some here are reticent to "modernize" the list, which I
> think speaks to the fact that we're driving 20+ year old cars and
> not buying whatever comes out that's new. ;)
If by modernize you mean stop being a mailing list and become a web
forum like Thesamba, yes, a lot of people here are more than reticent
to do that. Mailing lists are (for one thing) for people who haven't
got time, or sometimes bandwidth, to hang around on web forums.
>I understand that moderating a list is a completely thankless activity.
As I said, I haven't found it so. My experience has been in general
that we get often get thanks from people who are writing to complain
about something we've done, as well as ones just commenting, making a
suggestion or appreciating some action. We don't get a big volume of
mail but I certainly don't feel unappreciated.
> So, let me start by briefly saying thanks to David and BenT (and
> anyone who moderated before my time). I have experience in
> thankless activities - until recently, I was president of my
> homeowner's association. You want to talk about thankless. :)
This I believe.
>I'd posit that moderation may not be the most effective tool,
>especially in the "instant" email communications system such as this
>list. As an example, often times mods will come in and ask for a
>mail thread to be shut down. However, while the mods are asking in
>response #1, 53 guys are already responding to response #2. I find
>it difficult to expect in this type of forum that per-message or
>per-subject moderation can be terribly successful. It works on a web
>forum better as the moderator can lock the thread preventing further
>discussion. Here, the only real recourse you have is to suspend
>someone's posting privileges.
Shouldn't have to come to that, beyond maybe once or twice to show
that you will if you have to - and that only if necessary. Nobody's
been suspended or moderated in the last two years and I will bet very
very few in the previous thirteen or whatever. A handful of people
have been dismissed over the list's history. We invited one of them
back at his request a year or so ago with the proviso that he keep
his opinions related to National Socialism and such things to
himself. I believe he honestly tried but it finally got the better
of him and we re-dismissed him.
Mailing lists can be literally "moderated" and have each post
approved before distribution. We're not going to do that except at
need in individual cases, and the need hasn't arisen yet. Mailing
lists can have moderators hovering at all times. We're not going to
do that either. Everything Ben and I do is retrospective and may be
hours after the fact. Yes, this gives ragged edges to things
sometimes, but I don't personally think it's a big deal. Lifetime of
list - fifteen years or so. Number of flame wars - zero, at least
since ?'97? or so. Number of individual flames, a few.
Actually, I should have asked this at the beginning - what tool is
there other than moderation?
Yours,
David
