Re: Singed by the flames!

[P3D john bercovitz <bercov@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

It's probably appropriate to have a short metadiscussion at this point.

Jon G writes:
> Gee....I am sitting on the sidelines and I am not pleased to see the
> flaming going on
[...]
> I am not the list moderator....but we are here to help and support
> each other constructively

One of the Sells writes:
> I agree 100%, lots of things are showing up on the board that should be
> done by E-mail or not at all. Since there are so few of us to start
> with, you would think we could get along !!!!

Well, you're right of course.  I have not been looking forward to seeing
the next digest with any joy for some time now.  As a moderator, I feel
in a way I've abdicated on this one but to tell the truth, there was a
very strong contingent among the list members urging freedom of speech,
second chances, compassion and so these were also considerations.  I used
to be condemned pretty regularly for being heavy handed in my "moderation".
(Immoderate in my moderation?)  I don't want to go back there.

We dropped Cliff into the ignore file so that his messages only came
to the moderators.  He figured that out a good deal later.  90% of the
messages he sent to the list in the interim were pretty bad.  Since then,
we find that mr.3-d is no longer an address @juno.com.

Cliff was indeed following the advice of "taking it off the list".  I've
seen some of the notes and threats he's sent to members of this list -
they are studies in low-class scatology.  They didn't all come from
mr.3-d so it's obvious he can change addresses as if he were at AOL.

So what to do in future?  There are a several options.  One is for
everyone to remember that the easiest way to silence a flamer is to
totally ignore him.  This really works but it's tough for everyone to
keep in mind, especially if the flamer works hard to draw folks in.
Also, this doesn't seem to be obvious so each new list member would
need to be told about it - maybe something in the welcome/instruction
sheet (which very few have read)?

Another option is to go back to heavier moderation.  We may want to
reinstall some filtering (for Lenny Bruce's famous word list) since
these words seem to cause us to go into flame wars and thereby adversely
affect the signal to noise ratio.  I can't actually imagine the occasion
where we'd have a legitimate need for Lenny's famous words on this particular
mailing list.

Please send comments to 3d-moderators@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Thanks,
John B


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