At 07:59 PM 9/2/2005, Rob Lanphier wrote:
I have dabbled with the idea of using some of the moderation features on
the EM list. Specifically, I would hope to weed out the following:
* Blatant personal attacks
* Off-topic posts (such as the post below)
* Other violations of policy (see http://electorama.com/em for current
policy)
As it turns out, the Mailman mailing list software used on Electorama
has a very cool feature, which allows for setting the moderation flag on
a per-user basis.
This feature is also standard for yahoogroups lists....
So, I could conceivably put one or two people on
probationary moderation, while letting most emails pass through
unmoderated. I can also make it so that everyone is moderated by
default, and then clear the moderation flags for those individuals that
show good judgement.
My own experience indicates that, if there are clear rules, most
people will follow them. If the list is relatively small (which could
be up to a thousand members or so), default moderation may not be
necessary. However, as a list gets *very* large, or where a list is
dealing with hot-button issues that easily trigger flame wars,
default moderation may be a good way to go.
However, as they say, the devil is in the details. I moderated for
some years the usenet newsgroup soc.religion.islam. We had clear and
specific policies about moderation, and multiple moderators, any one
of whom could approve a message (though there was typically one duty
moderator at any time). Some of the ideas I'm working on were
originally designed to deal with that newsgroup. As an example,
writers whose posts were rejected were informed in the rejection
message that the rejection could be included in a regularly published
rejection list, if they so requested. The subject header (if it was
not intrinsically offensive in itself) and the email address of the
writer were given. I had planned -- and did some work toward
realizing -- setting up a mailing list, to which anyone could
subscribe, which would receive the incoming feed for the newsgroup.
This list would be otherwise read-only, it was not intended for
direct posting. However, whenever a post was rejected and the author
requested public notice, a URL could then be given to the rejected
post. And anyone could see exactly whether or not moderation was fair.
I'm not to that point, yet. It's a fair amount of work to do. The
non-trivial amount of spam moderation that occurs is work that I've been
very lax in doing. Fortunately, Anthony Duff has been doing a fantastic
job of staying on top of this; rarely have I found much laying around
when I've checked. I wouldn't want to potentially increase his workload
without his opinion on the subject.
However, if the signal-to-noise ratio gets too low on this list, I might
consider making a change (perhaps taking on more moderators to offset
the extra work).
To my mind, the best way to defuse disputes over moderation is for
moderators to conduct themselves as would chairs of meetings under
Robert's Rules. The moderators make decisions based on their
judgement, preferably following clear rules (but not all situations
meriting attention will be clearly described in the rules). Chairs
under RR have wide latitude to make rulings, which are by default
enforced, but always subject to appeal.
So on one mailing list which was formed specifically to be a "charter
committee" for the newsgroup soc.religion.islam, there were strict
rules about relevance, personal attacks, etc., and it came to pass
that one member violated the rules and did not respond to warning. (I
was the moderator). So I put him on moderation, and notified him that
he had the right to appeal to the membership. He did. Under RR, an
appeal from a ruling of the moderator is not a debatable issue, so a
vote was immediately taken. In spite of the likely fact that this
person had attempted to pack the membership with some dummy members,
my ruling was sustained. He left in a huff, and founded another list
to be a reform committee for the newsgroup, and that is a long and
entertaining story.... My point was that the process worked. That
member wanted to blame me, of course, but, in fact, it was the
membership that rejected his claim....
Some lists are tightly run by individuals; they can appear to be open
discussion fora but are actually controlled according to the agenda
of that person, which may or may not be stated in the rules. Other
lists do operate democratically, where the moderator(s) are merely
servants of the majority. One problem with lists is that there is no
clear membership definition; anyone can join, and someone can join
more than once, so vote counts can be problematic. However, there are
ways to deal with this problem.... One way is to define a list of
core members who are mutually respected, with procedures for
admitting new core members. And I won't go into all the possible
rules which could govern this.
----
Election-methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
