Date: Fri, 9 Feb 2001 16:50:10 -0500 (EST)
From: murr rhame <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
At the risk of picking another fight with Chuq... I haven't had
any significant problems with disruptive meta-discussions. Am I
just lucky?
Yes.
You haven't lived until there are several threads going with the subject
"the list from hell" and several more with your name in them talking about
what a horrible person you are. Yes this happened to me. It was before I
moderated the list and when all subs and unsubs had to be done manually by
me. I had just moved cross-country and (by a series of bad luck) was
homeless at the time. The people screaming the loudest about having too
much list volume to go through were also the ones posting the most
off-topic verbage. List technology--and my access to it--has improved a
lot since then so this will never happen again. But what a nightmare at
the time.
Anyone else have a major problem with volunteer list-cops?
With the exception of the above, no. I'm active in all my lists so no one
ever feels the need to step in in my stead. Some people do post admin
requests to teh list (like "please don't use HTML" or "please trim your
posts") but I don't put that in the same category as playing list cop cause
they're asking for consideration, not saying "this is the policy, obey it."
Actually, I've been on the other end, sort of. A list that splintered off
from mine had a listowner who was mostly absent. She rarely even read the
list. She included me (and some others) on admin decisions and considered
me part of the team that ran the list. She asked me several times to take
on the role of list moderator. Not officially (I had no admin access to
the software) but in terms of quelling flame wars and keeping people nice
and on topic. I refused. I had my own list to run and most of the people
on her list were there because my list didn't meet their needs (I was a
welcome poster but not welcome as admin).
Some lists are more volitile than others. The listowner has a lot to do
with that, but not always. Sometimes it's just luck of the draw. Who's on
there and how well they mesh with their fellow subscribers, the type of
discussion, the topics, the range of political and religious beliefs of the
subscribers, etc. My own list was almost flame-free for years. Then we
got some disruptive people (see above) and, even after they were booted, we
still had flame wars break out regularly. As soon as I started moderating
the list, the flames stopped entirely. But I've only rejected perhaps a
dozen posts for flame content in the last 3 years or so.
If you haven't experienced some of the hellish list behavior others of us
are talking about, count yourself lucky. But it's worth reading our
stories and preparing, because even the nicest of lists can turn nasty in a
heartbeat.
Cyndi
--
_______________________________________________________________________________
"There's nothing wrong with me. Maybe there's Cyndi Norman
something wrong with the universe." (ST:TNG) [EMAIL PROTECTED]
http://www.tikvah.com/
_________________ Owner of the Immune Website & Lists http://www.immuneweb.org/
