OT: Handling Politics the plug-discuss way?

[Alan Dayley]

> Hans agrees with me (via a quick discussion in the IRC channel) that these
> discussions in general detract from the list, and make the non-political-
> flame-war discussions less active/less... what is the word... visible, so I
> think that something should be done, or at least a discussion should take
> place about it.

It's been bad and getting worse.  It makes me sad.

> I see a few options:
> 1) We leave it here and do nothing. Most email clients have the ability to
> filter on subject/topic of a discussion, so those who didn't want to
> see/deal with/get drug into these discussions could easily filter them out.
> We could create a new topic heading, like we have for OT: (politics: or
> something, when someone posts something politically kinda sorta related),
> allowing those who want to take part in these discussions to do so, while
> the others are safely shielded from them. The problem with this is that new
> users will still see these discusions taking place, which could, imo be very
> detrimental to their joining this community/getting the help with a question
> they may need/just feeling comfortable. But of course, this is easy enough
> to do and leaves the work for the users who don't like said discussions to
> take care of.

#1 This does not help new people to the list.  They could be flooded
with OT: stuff for a day or two before they figure out that filtering
is needed.  By then they would be likely to give up.  It would be
better than nothing but I have doubts it would work.

> 2) Create another list for these mails. The problem with this idea is that
> (imo) mailman has no easy way to control WHERE messages between two
> different lists go, so I think that it could be hard to transition between
> the two lists when a discussion does eventually go OT-Political. This would
> rely mostly on the good will and rememberance of the posters, which in the
> experience of the last few OT-Political threads has given me the impression
> that this will NOT work.

#2 has been proposed and not implemented, though I don't remember why.
 I would not mind this solution as an outlet for the group to point
off topic people toward.

> 3) We moderate OT threads. My personal opinion is that the best way to keep
> flame wars down is to moderate. Not so much eliminate the posts that may
> incite these political discussions but to put a long enough delay on the
> posts that it hampers the quick reply-reply-reply-reply that usually is what
> completely derails thoughtful discussion. If users are given the instant
> chance to write a quick retort to a discussion and have that instantly
> posted to a hundred people who may or may not have the same idealogy
> basically causes a thread to go haywire in a matter of hours. With a
> sufficient delay in these posts being sent to the group, this haywiring can
> be pushed out to a day or two, hopefully alleviating any flame wars which
> may develop. Most of the wars that take place on p-d are about a day or two
> long at most anyways.

#3 would be very bad.  This minimizes the ability to provide immediate
and timely tech support when it is needed.  I don't like this idea at
all unless someone were moderating the list 24/7 so that there is zero
delay on the messages that need to go quick.  Otherwise we have cut a
significant part of the value of the list.  And I don't see 24/7
moderation as realistic, even if a team of people volunteered.

> 4) We forbid it. I think that this is the WORST option, but an option
> nonetheless. I am not in favor of censorship at all, but if things get bad
> enough we could do this. It would probably have to fall back to #3.

#4 See #3.

> My personal preference is #3, but that gives someone an extra job, and I
> don't think Hans should have to do it himself. A board of moderators be
> elected perhaps? Is there any way to crowdsource it? If this was a forum
> rather than a mailing list (which I don't support at all!) we could add a
> score/rating system, but I don't think that this is possible via e-mail.

See #3.

#2 is my preference.  If not that, the community needs to police
itself.  If it can't do that, the value deteriorates accordingly.

Alan