Personal mail and moderation

David Rodger (auricle@alphalink.com.au)
Tue, 14 Oct 1997 20:45:17 +0100

Thanks to Darren, Richard, Nik and Richard for contributions to this
(semi-) debate. And thanks to "Internet old-timer" and moderator-of-sorts
Scott, whom I quote in what follows.

Okay, here's the rub. I am not suggesting that the list be any more
moderated than it is now (virtually not at all). I, too, enjoy the
exchange of ideas. But it's pretty clear that some of the messages that
make it to the list are not intended for public consumption and,
consequently, exchange. Occasionally, someone makes the mistake and we
there's some little piece of information that turns out to be valuable.

>is it time to moderate more fully?

No, unless it's to diffuse heated arguments. But a monthly administrative
FAQ wouldn't go astray. This has worked on other lists.

>After all, we get very used to hitting
>that reply button, and it's easy to forget that the response will go out to
>a hundred or so friends and strangers on the list. It's somewhat
>embarrassing, so a simple reminder usually does the trick.

Which is what _my_ message, sought to do, if somewhat abruptly. But as I
just said to Darren in a private post, it doesn't take much to work out
what to do. Even if your have the BLAH BLAH BLAH option in Eudora turned
off, the Reply-to: field in the shortened headers is the _second_ line in
any received message. What's more, when you reply (rather than create a
new message), the To: field in your reply can be changed, thus giving you a
chance to prevent the mistake. (I found that out by experiment, not RTFM.
For your net newbies, that abbreviation means "read(ing) the f***ing
manual".)

Remember, folks, you are _paying_ for this wasted bandwidth or making
others pay for it. Before anyone objects and says "I have a flat rate from
my ISP!", ask yourself why the rate isn't lower or why your download limit
isn't higher.

>Fortunately, people rarely post *really* personal material, and
>so in most cases it simply doesn't matter.

I disagree. Sorry to say it, but this list has the highest apparently-
private-to-public message ratio and the greatest amount of verbatim
repetition (i.e. unedited replies) of any of the (eight) lists to which I
am currently subscribed. Perhaps this says more about dancers and
technology than all of the contributions of our (very knowledgeable)
members combined. ;-)

Regards, David

David Rodger, "I'd bet for techno music you
Audio Engineer: could get pretty good lossless
Recording, Editing, Mastering compression, as the compression
Lifeguard and Lifeguard Trainer is based on repeated data."
Phone: +61-3-9459-1898 -- Michael Conlen
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