Re: Moderation experiment and moderator liability (fwd)

[Sandy Sandfort <sandfort@crl.com>]

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                          SANDY SANDFORT
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C'punks,

Adam has assembled a pretty good history of recent events.  The
following comments only cover some of the issues raised by Adam.
It should not be assumed that I agree with all the statements
upon which I do not comment.  I have limited myself to commenting
on only a few issues with which I am in dispute.

On Sun, 16 Feb 1997, Adam Back wrote:

> Events:

> 9. John made a post to the list announcing that the list would be
> moderated for one month from Jan 11 as an experiment, and included
> Sandy Sandfort's proposed moderatation policy and offer to act as
> moderator.  It appeared that the moderation experiment was Sandy's
> suggestion, and that John had agreed to go along with it.

Moderation was my suggestion, but the moderation policy was not.
My suggestion was quite different.  In a nutshell I wanted to:

	a.  Limit posts to list members only.
	b.  Promote civility on the list by applying sanction to
	    list members who repeatedly flamed or otherwise 
	    breached civil decorum.
	c.  Provide for anonymous or non-member posts by having
	    volunteers act as "gateways" who would forward 
	    anonymous--but civil--posts to the list.

Curiously, in a subsequent telephone conversation, Tim May 
proposed almost that exact suggestion as an alternative form of
moderation that he said would have been acceptable to him.  Go
figure.
 
> 21. Tim received a warning from C2Net's lawyers that if he did not
> desist from mentioning that Dimitri had posted an article criticising
> a C2Net product that he would be sued!

Absolutely false.
 

 S a n d y

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