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Re: [OM] Moderator on List

Subject: Re: [OM] Moderator on List
From: "John A. Lind" <jlind@xxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Sun, 19 Aug 2001 00:47:57 +0000
At 00:54 8/19/01, Dave wrote:
[many suggestions; see original posting]

Dave,
Have you ever owned a server, email system, or BBS before?
I have, and I was ultimately responsible for the content of everything that flowed into, through and out of it, whether I was able to monitor it all or not (this was totally impractical; indeed impossible). Didn't matter whether I killed it afteward; I had liability and culpability for anything that shouldn't be there, and for any length of time no matter how short . . . period . . . along with the perpetrator. What follows is based on my experience of about seven years of doing it.

I've emailed this privately to Giles and Shawn before, and will now publicly applaud their basic hands-off policy. This is a very hard thing to do; emphasis on very hard. It's what makes it *our* list even though it's really *their* list operating out of their server. Anything more than intervening with clearly beyond any possible doubt, the most outrageous and egregious behavior imaginable, only runs the risk of being labeled a censor and can create a Holy War of its own. I found with systems I operated in the past that letting users police themselves, exerting peer pressure to do so, and developing their own consensus about what was generally acceptable was the best possible policy. In seven years with hundreds of users intervention was only required twice for behavior that was not legally allowed, and only one individual was ultimately booted off (from one of the incidents).

Bottom line:
A very, very few rules are better. Allow it to be the *users* list and you will have many users. Insist on it being the *owners* list, even though there may be a committee, or panel, or whatever you call it to make content and behavior decisions and you will also have politicking, sucking up to the "powers that be," and the *appearance* of a "class society" on the system, with insiders who are chummy with those in charge and outsiders who are not, along with ultimately only a few users. Perception is everything to the beholder; doesn't matter if it's true or not.

I know where your heart is with your suggestion . . . to make this a better place. IMO it won't get the results you want, but only frustration.

-- John


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