----- Original Message ----- From: "Nick Arnett" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: "Brin-L" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Thursday, May 02, 2002 9:56 AM Subject: List owners v. list members, bah! (was RE: I need a reality check on aisle 2)
> > > > -----Original Message----- > > From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]On > > Behalf Of Jon Gabriel > > Sent: Wednesday, May 01, 2002 10:20 PM > > To: Brin-L > > Subject: I need a reality check on aisle 2 > > > > > > I'd like to ask the list for a reality check. > > > > I have made clear that I feel Jeroen is threatening list members. I have > > also made my opinion clear about that: I think it's inappropriate > > for a list > > owner to exercise his power in this way. > > > > Would some active listmembers please weigh in and offer their > > opinions? I'd > > like to know if I'm off base or out of line. > > I'll weigh in and be blunt about it. The list owner/list member distinction > you're making is b.s. Call me a pinko communist, but I don't believe that > on-line communities can be owned. They have administrators and managers, > but they're owned by the people who participate. If an on-line community > only has managers, then there's nothing to own. Well, IMHO, its not BS. Everyone has the ability to either subscribe to the list or not. They can choose whether or not to receive email messages and whether to receive them one by one or as a digest. They can choose to have a killfile for posters who they don't want to read. They can choose to post or choose not to post. List owners can do more. They get to decide who is on the list and who is off the list. A few keystrokes and a listowner can boot anyone they want to. That is a measure of power on the list. > > Jeroen is voluntarily acting as an *administrator*, not an owner. As far as > I'm concerned, anybody who uses the word "owner" to describe what he does is > shirking responsibility. Its the technical term that is used by most mailing lists. List owners are like superusers on computer systems, they have privledges that others don't. >If he wants to play Nixon and create an enemies list, that shouldn't threaten the list any more than if >anyone else did so. Why not? Only two other people have the power to kick people off the list. > I could have "[EMAIL PROTECTED]" up and running in minutes. Any of you > could do the same via a number of free hosting services. That's true. We could get a list full of ads in each message. Any one of us could do that. However, lets consider the case in which person A and B are in a flame war. B cannot stop A from posting whatever A pleases, but A can boot B off the list at any time. Its true that B can then start a new list, but it would take a lot of motivation for the rest of the people on the list to move en mass. Unlike the Reformation, people cannot be converted at gunpoint. :-) Dan M.
