> -----Original Message----- > From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]On > Behalf Of Gautam Mukunda > After reading all of the traffic related to this topic, and regardless of > who is right or wrong, I would like to humbly suggest to the list owners > that, in the future, these types of warnings be made off-list and private. > I am not making this suggestion because of the resulting discussion, but > there is no point in publicly embarrassing or humiliating someone when a > private email would likely make the point. I would like to enthusiastically agree (that's three times for Gautam and me, so those of you who have fainted, sorry). I've been moderating and managing on-line communities for about 15 years now. Without fail, public warnings provoke just the kind of argument that's taking place now. I warn in private and when circumstances force me to remove somebody from a list, it happens quietly. And I'm *extremely* reluctant to do so -- only for spamming or repeated personal attacks. (If you think we get very passionate here, you'd melt in the flames of an argument among people with cancer regarding alternative treatments, spirituality, the Great Drug Conspiracy, etc.) Nick Sadly, no, Nick, we haven't actually had our first Brin-L miracle. The above was, I believe, written by Eric - I'm quite certain it wasn't me :-) Actually my argument is maybe more subtle than I made it out to be in my initial response to the above post. I definitely prefer an initial, private, warning to a public statement as was first made in this case. So I guess I do agree with you, Nick, even though you didn't know that at the time you thought we were in agreement :-) But in this _particular_ case I think it was actually a good thing that it was made in public, because what happened was an attempt at censorship, not the maintenance of civility. Thus the public nature of the warning allowed the listmembers to see what happened and judge it - and so far _every single person who has posted_ save Jeroen (who caused the threat to be issued) has felt that what happened was inappropriate. So I agree with you in general but feel that in this specific case having what happened occur in the sunlight was a very valuable thing. Gautam
