Bernie, I do agree with this, and expect from past traffic that the need to moderate individual posters will be rare.  The needed list-moderation is passing on messages from non-subscribers.  It is a social meme that those people are also asked to help keep the list from degenerating into off-topic arguments... but such moderation should be with a light hand. SJ <div class="gmail_quote">On Thu, May 8, 2008 at 9:49 AM, Bernie Innocenti <<a href="mailto:bernie@codewiz.org">bernie@codewiz.org</a>> wrote: <blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;"> <div class="Ih2E3d">Samuel Klein wrote: <blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;"> I just forwarded a bunch of mail from non-subscribers from the past two weeks.   I am looking for 1-2 people to help moderate this list -- this involves filtering spam, passing on messages from non-list members, keeping heated discussions on-topic, and moderating the rare overzealous poster.  Please reply to me off-list if interested. </blockquote> </div> Some time ago, I posted the following comments about moderation to a closed OLPC list. This is not to say there shouldn't be someone managing the list. Just that they should not apply a strict moderation policy. Do you agree on this? -------- Original Message -------- Subject: Re: on transparency Date: Tue, 29 Apr 2008 12:38:29 +0200 From: Bernie Innocenti <<a href="mailto:bernie@laptop.org" target="_blank">bernie@laptop.org</a>> To: Samuel Klein <<a href="http://meta.sj" target="_blank">meta.sj</a>@<a href="http://gmail.com" target="_blank">gmail.com</a>> CC: Marco Pesenti Gritti <<a href="mailto:mpg@redhat.com" target="_blank">mpg@redhat.com</a>>, <a href="mailto:tech-team@laptop.org" target="_blank">tech-team@laptop.org</a> Samuel Klein wrote: <blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;"> If we can clarify this, the list mods can be encouraged to keep discussion on topic. </blockquote> Strict moderation and splitting into micro-topic groups was attempted by the venerable FidoNet and Usenet, two very large pre-Internet networks.  In my experience, it created more trouble than benefit. A large part of the traffic was moderators bitching with subscribers about what is on topic and how the policy should be modified to allow or deny a particular behavior.  Lots of posting would begin with disclaimers: "I'm not sure this is on topic, please forgive me if it's not...". The most popular argument was: "you are wasting everybody's bandwidth!", along with estimates of how many bytes were transferred to convey the inappropriate topic.  Then when bandwidth was not a problem any more, it became a S/N ratio issue. Some individuals cannot suffer to hear others expressing their own ideas and bring up bandwidth and S/N excuses as a way to censor them. This is why moderation in public forums was a bed idea and was dropped in modern Internet. What works very well, instead, is self moderation and peer-to-peer moderation, because people in general learn to avoid behavior that upsets everybody else.  I think the Wikipedia works on the very same principle. --  \___/  _| o |  Bernie Innocenti - <a href="http://www.codewiz.org/" target="_blank">http://www.codewiz.org/</a>  \|_X_|  "It's an education project, not a laptop project!" </blockquote></div>