Date: Mon, 27 Apr 1998 06:06:02 -0600
From: Hans Ehrbar <ehrbar-AT-keynes.econ.utah.edu>
Subject: List groundrules for Utah marxism space



Here are some of the groundrules for the Utah marxism space
I have been thinking about.  All this is up for discussion,
this is only my private brainstorming at the moment:

(1) absolutely no divulging of private information,
good or bad, about other list members.

(2) no forwarding of private email to the list
without the sender's consent

(3) anonymity is ok; perhaps we should provide the
possibility on every list to post under a pseudonym
if the subscriber wants it.

(4) One of the lists in marxism-space will be called
marxism-ezines.  It will have full-length articles from
various marxist publications and web sites.

(5) Since we have marxism-ezines, I will remove the 10 Kbyte
limit from marxism-general if it comes.

(6) I do think a list which is fully unmoderated for content
needs a posting limit.  But perhaps we can be flexible:
contributions above the daily limit will need approval
and will be sent to an editorial committee first.
If any one of them approves it, it will go through.  If
we use smartlist instead of majordomo as the list server
software, it catches duplicate submissions, therefore if
more than one member of the editorial committee approves it,
it will be sent to the list only once.  Perhaps we can also
play with the posting limit: try two posts per day and see
how it goes, etc.

(7) The lists in the cluster should be considered as a
whole.  Some of the more seasoned Mrxists on Thaxis should
occasionally visit marxism-intro and field questions from
newcomers.  Those who are experts about some of the
real-world developments which are in marxism-news should be
the ones who approve the postings to marxism-news and feed
postings into marxism-news; we should discourage
cross-posting, etc.

(8) Attacks which are clearly ad hominem without any
theoretical or political content should be strongly
discouraged.

(9) The argument that people should be able to post freely
because the recipients can always use the delete button
does not convince me.  A list is characterized not only
by what is posted to the list but also by what is not
posted to the list.


How to create the institutions which allow these principles
to be realized will be another thing to be discussed.  Maybe
we will have a closed watchdog list on which distinguished
members of the various lists discuss with the moderators.
For instance if one moderator allows a list member to
slander others or to engage in personal attackes instead of
political argument, then this may be brought up on the
watchdog list.  If one of the moderators engages in such
practices himself or herself, then perhaps he or she can be
recalled as a moderator.  All these are difficult issues,
and we still are on fairly new territory here, but if we
succeed these lists will be very valuable.

Hans.