P3D Re: Proper Netiquett

["Dr. George A. Themelis" <DrT-3d@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi Brenda and thank you for sharing with us your thoughts.

>How many of us have answering machines or caller I.D.?  
>Have we *never* filtered a single call?  Did we ask all those
>calling us, permission?  

The way you ask the questions it is difficult for anyone to disagree.  
But I'll do my best... :-)  When you filter phone calls, what
do you do?  See who is calling, even listen to the message and
decide not to take it.  With email this means that you see who
sends the message, perhaps read the contents quickly, and decide
not to respond.  Fine.  No problem with that.  (Even though, I
would expect that your mother or friends might be disappointed
and upset if they know you are home and not picking up the phone)

By sending messages from specific individuals to the trash right
away, without reading them, you have decided that these individuals 
are not worth reading or responding to whatever they have to say.... 
maybe they are harassing you, etc.  A little bit different.  No one 
says you cannot do that in the privacy of your home.  What some people 
suggested is that we don't need to know about it.  I continue to 
believe that it is inappropriate for a "talkative" member of this
list to filter messages based purely on sender.

>When I joined this list, I understood that flaming would not be 
>tolerated.  Yet, it has been.  And now we have advanced to name 
>calling.

Who determines that is flaming and what is "name calling"?  Do we
all agree on the limits?  Who will settle our differences if we
do not agree?

This list has moderators who are assigned duties for smooth list 
operation.  One of them is called "content moderator".  His job is to 
make sure that the discussions in this list remain focused and are 
conducted within proper boundaries.  In the lack of any feedback, the 
content moderator might reflect personal "taste" in his decisions for 
action or lack of.  Old timers might remember when the list was under 
different "management" and things were slightly different.

If you are concerned about the list contents, character, operation, 
etc., you can try sending your feedback directly to the moderators at:

3d-moderators@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Note that the list is not moderated in a strict sense.  No one is 
reading the messages before they are posted, approving one at a time. 
We all see them as they are posted.  There are filters (the f-word! 
:-)) to stop some common subscription or help requests or spam but no 
one can stop a message for other reasons.  Moderators can step in 
"after the fact", recall the list to order and they even have the 
power to unsubscribe a person for disruptive behavior.  This has 
happened in the past!

Another issue that comes up occasionally is the content of 
discussions.  There have been concerns that this list focuses on 
technical discussions (vs. aesthetic) and it is heavily geared towards 
Realist format and slide film.  All you can do to change this and 
shift the "center of gravity" is to post on your areas of interest.

If there is something you would like to say regarding list operation 
and don't want to post it to the list, send it to the moderators.  
I am sure they would love to hear from you! :-)

-- George Themelis


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