From: "Rosser Jr, John Barkley" <rosserjb-AT-jmu.edu>
Subject: how to moderate a list without purging
Date: Wed, 4 Sep 1996 15:05:21 -0400 ()


     I tried to send this before got a message that it did 
not compute.  We have a horrendous new system which cannot 
handle volume or much else, and I have been off M1 mostly 
lately, although lurking on the duck pond.
     I don't know what the spoons have decided about 
beating up on the knives and forks, but I have a proposal 
about how to moderate a list without purging the lovable 
Planet Gonzo's inhabitants (and who among us does not 
belong there?  Surely not the officious Louis Proyect!).
     Ecol-econ had an unmoderated list that got wrecked by 
a single person who simply sent too much, although to this 
day he refuses to admit this.  They now limit an individual 
to having their last eight messages not exceed 12% of the 
total of the last 100 messages to the list.  This allows 
people to send several messages in one day, which might be 
useful if they are involved in a hot thread.  But then they 
would have to cool it for awhile.  Also ecol-econ's 
managers warn people when they are about to crash into 
their limits.  This should help the volume problem.
     I think that efforts to purge based on Louis's or 
Lisa's or Hans's judgment of the intellectual, political, 
literary, moral, or psychiatric content of their messages 
is doomed to failure and duckpondery.  I have nothing 
against new lists, but in general think that the new "let a 
thousand lists bloom" proposal is just an invitation to 
balkanization and the end of dialogue.  An ecol-econ type 
moderation would make things more manageable, if not 
necessarily more sane.
Barkley Rosser
PS:  Since I have been mostly off of here recently, I 
apologize for not getting back at anybody who may have 
called me a fascist, social democratic rubbish, or petit 
bourgeois revisionist scum in my absence....:-).

-- 
Rosser Jr, John Barkley
rosserjb-AT-jmu.edu




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