Re: Thoughts on moderation

[Douglas Barnes <cman@c2.net>]

Goodness knows most people who are fully engaged in a mailing list
get involved in an unproductive discussion or argument from time to
time. My main assertion about Sandy is that although he has his likes
and dislikes (and is not shy about sharing them) I can't see him
bouncing messages just because someone was disagreeing with him. There
might be someone who is less opinionated, but I think that you need
to find someone who cares enough about a subject to be interested in
moderating it (one antonym of "opinionated" is "dispassionate" -- 
think about it.)

The only way to tell if Sandy will be fair _as a moderator_ is to 
give him a chance. Years of knowing him as a friend, and four months
of sharing an office indicate that while he's stubborn and opinionated,
he's also extremely fairminded, and will not bounce for content he
disagrees with. He also has a broad concept (some might argue too
broad) of acceptable list topics, but since we're looking primarily to
screen out the worst dreck & outright spam, he seems like a logical
choice as moderator.

I don't see this move as censorship of any sort -- cleaning the Augean
stables is more like it. I am profoundly tired of wading through
completely worthless and vapid trash accusing Tim and John of various
sexual perversions. (Note that if the writers actually knew these 
folks, they'd at least be able to write better or more interesting
libel.)


At 10:35 PM 1/6/97 -0800, you wrote:
>Douglas Barnes wrote:
>> 1) I've known Sandy for a couple of years, and I trust him to
>>    use good judgement as a moderator. It will be important to
>>    develop guidelines so that the job can be rotated, but it's also
>>    important that the moderator be someone who doesn't have any
>>    major axe to grind. Sandy has his personal likes and dislikes,
>>    but I don't think he'll ever stoop to tossing out opinions that
>>    he disagrees with.
>
>Wishful thinking, Doug.  Sandy will take an emotional (non-objective)
>position on an issue, and argue it beyond any reasonable limit. I wish
>I had all his replies to things I've said - you'd see what I mean.
>
>Not to promote anyone who I might not be a friend of, but, there are
>people on this list who are "well respected" who are light-years ahead
>of Sandy in areas that are important for a list moderator.
>
>Maybe Gilmore should have publicly announced for a moderator, and then
>let the subscribers pick....
>
>