right on the edge...

[Craig White]

On Wed, 2008-11-05 at 21:40 -0700, Alan Dayley wrote:
> On Wed, Nov 5, 2008 at 9:17 PM, Ryan Rix <phrkonaleash at gmail.com> wrote:
> > I agree, this, imo, immature bickering about who was or was not elected
> > needs to stop. We all have our own opinions and will fight to the death. I
> > suggest making a rule, at least, not to touch:
> >
> > *Politics
> > *Religion
> 
> I agree with this.
> 
> > These posts will get either moderated or just plain dropped.
> 
> Are you offering to be moderator?  Do you have the time for that?  How
> will we ensure that the moderator is fair?  How will you define fair?
> Who will drop posts?  How we ensure that they are fair?
> 
> I'm not trying to be a wet blanket on discussion about solutions.  I'm
> glad it's being discussed.  But any solution must be practical to
> implement and defined in a way that will actually work.  If the group
> wants a moderator, we will have to answer the above questions, an
> probably more I'm not thinking of right now.
> 
> > Any other ideas?
> 
> The ideas I like most are:
> 
>  *Self moderation out of respect for the group and the topic of the
> list.  This means don't make off-topic posts.
>  *Community moderation, which usually works.    This means respond to
> off-topic posts only to ask them to stop.
> 
> Both of the above broke down on this, the day after a hard-fought and
> historic election.  We must re-enforce them.
> 
> Maybe a monthly publication of expected participation activity would
> be appropriate.
----
The list would be severely diminished by moderation and going through
the PLUG website, I failed to locate any rules that govern discussion on
the list and as you have pointed out, there is typically community
moderation that mostly works.

One cannot overlook the people who decided to use the PLUG list to tell
us we are screwed, Obama is a Socialist and a Muslim and cavorting with
terrorists as the perpetrators of the misuse of the list. Those are the
people who raised the topics of politics and religion on the list.

If there are some like Mike Havens who decide to dump their political
disappointments on the list with no purpose other than to create havoc,
it's reasonable to expect that there will be push back by those who are
offended - that is the very point of community moderation.

If there are some like Keith Smith, who want to use the list to advance
their extreme notions of Christianity, paint all Muslims as evil and
just generally spew their bile with a special brand of intolerance with
love for Reverend John Hagee, there is a need to push back and again, I
see my efforts as a form of list community moderation.

For the record, I didn't raise any of the topics in the 'We are screwed'
thread. NONE. I did however, push back on the evil characterizations
made by those who felt it important enough to use the PLUG mail list to
introduce these characterizations and will do so every time because it
is essential that we not allow these kind of sentiments to pass
unchallenged.

Also for the record, I do not apologize for my efforts to push back
against those who wish to promulgate culture wars on this list.

Craig