[Web4lib] Subscriber Removal Clarification

[Mike Taylor]

> Date: Tue, 20 Dec 2005 10:24:01 -0500 (EST)
> From: Barbara Stewart <stew at library.umass.edu>
> 
> Why must banning be for life? If one is bankrupt, 7 years without a
> credit card. If one goes to prison and pays their time, then it
> should ostensibly not be held against them back in the 'world
> without walls'. Isn't a lifetime ban Draconian? And considering the
> amount of "bad" words one hears spouting every day from radios,
> mp3's etc., I consider this rule particularly right-wing.

I wasn't going to get sucked into this, but ...

Anyone who's every run a high-membership, high-volume mailing list
such as this one will know what a demanding, time-intensive,
morale-sapping and thankless exercise it is.  Unless moderators are
going to dedicate themselves full-time to babysitting a list (and
who's going to pay their salaries?  Not me!) it absolutely necessary
that they make clear policies and reserve the right to stick with
them.  Having their decisions quibbled with is dispiriting and
unfruitful.

No-one on the list but the moderators knows the full story here: few
of us know the history, and none of us knows what was said in private
to Chuck, and how he responsed to warnings.  I think it behoves us all
to remember that this list is a service, provided at no cost by
volunteer moderators with very finite resources to put into it and (no
doubt) with social lives they'd rather be putting the time into.
Please, folks, let's not be making it harder for them.  The health of
the list as a whole has to be more important than the inclusion or
exclusion of one particular repeat-offender.

(And where on earth have people picked up the idea that Chuck's
banning offence was dropping the F-bomb?  I've not read _anything_
from the moderators that supports this interpretation.)

The suggestion's been made that those who don't like how this list is
run should leave and start their own lists.  I second that: it's not
an idle suggestion, because the only way you can know what it's like
to moderate such a list and deal with trolls is by experiencing it
yourself.  When all is said and done, the reason this list is as
popular and voluminous as it is today is that years of strict
moderation have made it so, so that new members quickly discover that
this is a place of minimal flamage and maximum information.  That
doesn't happen by accident.  I've seen too many good lists wither and
die due to over-tolerant moderators putting up with the kind of
behaviour that diminishes the value of the list.

That's all, thanks for listening.  Keep up the good work, Roy and
friends.

 _/|_	 ___________________________________________________________________
/o ) \/  Mike Taylor  <mike at miketaylor.org.uk>  http://www.miketaylor.org.uk
)_v__/\  "Major changes in release 1.8: `date' doesn't dump core on some
	 systems now" -- FSF release note (what about the other systems?)