Re: THANKS! Re: It's time to go

[Janice Gelb <janiceg -at- marvin -dot- eng -dot- sun -dot- com>]

In article 29b68f20 -at- aol -dot- com, MichaelHuggins -at- aol -dot- com writes:
>Eric, since you invited public comments, I assume you really want them, so
>I'll offer a few thoughts here.
>
>I had never heard of this list before about 6 weeks ago. I had subscribed to
>a Yahoo club last year, but this list is much bigger, more active, and more
>informative.
>[snip]
>
>5. It has become obvious to me that despite the list rule about negative and
>personal postings, that rule is generally not enforced. I can't think of
>anywhere to assign responsibility for that except at the door of the list
>manager. I have also received off-list communication from you. I will not
>describe it, since, even though you mention on- and off-list communication in
>your post and invite public comment, I don't think that treating individual
>instances is exactly what you had in mind. I will say generally that from
>what I have seen being allowed to happen on the board publicly, and from the
>attitude you have displayed privately, I have very little respect for you
>personally or for your abilities as a list manager. In my opinion, you are
>doing a pretty poor job. In particular, the comment in your post:
>
>|What to do about it? I haven't any idea.
>
>..strikes me as rather embarrassingly weak and pitiable. If you wish to run a
>list, then I would say you need to get your act together and do so. If you
>find you're not capable of it, then discontinue it. But at this point, from
>the point of view of a new subscriber, your performance is definitely less
>than impressive.
>

I find it simply more evidence of the change in manners of 
Internet posting in general and of this group in particular 
that someone who has been posting to and reading a group 
for less than 6 weeks would feel qualified to judge the 
moderator and then post that judgment, including personal 
adjectives, to the group.

Perhaps had you been reading this group longer, you would 
realize that Eric's response is likely the cumulative result of 
years of volunteer effort to walk the very fine line between 
members who think that any moderating at all is heavy-handed 
and subverting their constitution right to free speech and 
other people who think that people are getting away with 
murder.

What do you do with a post that makes a snide remark but 
then provides a lot of otherwise useful information? What 
about someone who has mostly been a good list citizen 
but suddenly posts something obnoxious just from having 
a bad day? And those are just examples off the top of 
my head without ever having moderated.

I think messages on the subject of where to draw the line on 
posts is legitimate. Tossing ill-informed judgments in about 
the current moderator that use adjectives like "pitiable" is not.

*********************************************************************
Janice Gelb                  | Just speaking for me, not Sun. 
janice -dot- gelb -at- eng -dot- sun -dot- com      | http://www.geocities.com/Area51/8018/

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