Moderation: No thanks

Whereas I'm not in favor of sweeping generalizations.... Whereas I'm not in
favor of bigotry.....
Whereas I'm not in favor of shoot-from-the-hip posting....
Whereas I'm not in agreement with some things said by some people (to the
point of violent disagreement)..... And Whereas I'm not perfect myself,

I'm still distinctly unlikely to join a moderated list.

My own views are that censorship should be applied by individuals for their
own purposes, not by others on their behalf( YMMV). Further, good, consistent
moderation is hard to achieve and slows the pace of discussions. You can end
up with a dictatorship of the small elite. Not interested at all.

Almost every mail client will support some sort of killfile list to delete
posts from X offensive poster. (More of a challenge for us digesters, but the
scroll keys work pretty effectively)

I don't want (with all due respect) Jerry or anyone else deciding what I see.
They may (mostly) represent my views, but how will I know when they are not?
And will any whiff of controversy bring out their reaction? And will their own
pecadillos and prejudices be somehow absent? Nope, no thanks.

Yes, I think some people should realize that:

1) flame wars are inappropriate and can be effected (if they must) off list

2) responding to a flame is participating in a flame war (if you aren't part
of the solution... you're part of the problem)

3) the best way to deal with idiotic posts is to IGNORE THEM (Why? Most
listers are bright enough to recognize stupidity and give it the short shrift
it deserves without anyone to point it out....)

4) I've seen some (from my view) silly comments about a lack of SciFi
postings.... that's just about as ridiculous a thing as I've heard yet on the
list! (Well, that's
hyperbole, I admit.) Future History IS Sci-Fi. Future History derives
from current and past history. Future tech derives from current and past tech.
Future attitudes will probably mimic (in some degree) past or current ones.
Now, do I agree that some of these discussions should move to the gzg history
list? Yes. But only because that is a more focused list. This list is a
generalist list that covers all matters of interest to the GZG community and
the only real definition of that is "what are we discussing?". It is of
interest to at least someone in the GZG community if it appears here, and
perhaps more than one person. Often you won't know until after the topic is
tossed around. But if most people don't like it, they can get up and say "this
is offtopic" or "not very interesting" or BEST of all, propose their OWN topic
and get a better discussion going. I'd rather not see the list try to enforce
someone's pet standard of what is or is not SciFi.

5) Posting when aggitated means you are likely to say something stupid. Let it
sit for a day, and even then review your post before making it. Quickdraw
replies usually make you look pretty dumb. And they prolong the general agony.

There seems to be a misconception that you can get a better S/N ratio by
getting rid of all the N. Whereas to some extent this is true, if there is no
signal, the ratio won't improve. The best way to beat unpleasant or
uninteresting topics is to FLOOD the list with GOOD topics and INTERESTING
posts. It is always easier to criticise than to create.... but creation is
more powerful.

There, I've posted my run-on rant. I'm sorry to see list members go if
they don't like the tone.... and I wish everyone would focus on being passably
polite. One can still hold radically divergent opinion without being
inflammatory or rude or by questioning the morals or standards of another list
member. But the list should be a free medium of discussion for good or ill.

Of course, as Dennis Miller says, I could be wrong.

Tomb

PS - I've seen a number of web communities that use moderation systems
(Kuro5hin, Slashdot, etc) and most of them have problems with Trolling and
crappy Moderation and they have hundreds of thousands of participants and
thousands of moderators I'm sure. Now some are even moderating moderations to
try to sort out good moderators from bad....