Chip's offlist fight with listadmin ended well for all concerned, IMHO, I'm glad Chip agrees. Definitely offlist stuff, the list wasn't deprived of anything. Raking up old coals isn't always a good idea, and this would just have been a distraction or worse.
I think there's a lot of offlisting going on all the time, from what I can make out a lot of members seem to do it. It's healthy, I don't think it deprives anyone of anything, maybe the opposite. There doesn't seem to be any shortage of onlist interaction. >Chip wrote: "I had a post 'screened' a few months back, which led to >a lively off-list debate..." > >If all posts on that thread were screened, I disagree with your >assessment. However, I agree with subsequent screening/deleting >after the list members had a chance to read and dissent to the >initial posts. > >To my knowledge Keith tries to give the list a chance to respond to >every post and it's understood (IMO) that members who have nothing >but antagonism to offer, are removed. This is usually done with all >the transparency he can afford. Thankyou. That's true, or as true as I can make it. There are also various ways of trying to prevent the antagonism arising in the first place, but such things can only go so far before they do more harm than good. A bit of a balancing act. If it looks this way from the other end, as Mike says, then I'm well pleased: >This forum proves that a loose framework is very effective >at maintaining individual freedoms while allowing it's membership to >participate in maintaining continuity. By the way, Mike: > > It's also too common to see a reactionary restriction of >expression, screening all posts before distribution (for example). Strangely, IMO, the big list owners group at Yahoo does that, everybody's screened, not just newcomers on auto-moderation for their first posts like most groups. It's not run by Yahoo, it's just another group, run by list owners for list owners, and that's how they do it. It's a useful group and I wouldn't want to argue with them about it, but I think if we had to do that here it wouldn't be worth having anymore. Thanks again. Best Keith >Mike > > >Chip Mefford <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > >Michael Redler wrote: > > I just wanted to chime in here. > > > > Keith wrote: > > > > "It reached a stage here where the list would not have > > survived unless we'd formulated the rules, which were already there, > > we didn't just make them up." > > > > It's also too common to see a reactionary restriction of >expression, screening all posts before distribution (for example). > >Oh, I don't know. > >I had a post 'screened' a few months back, which led to a lively >off-list debate, (actually it was a fight/screaming match) -which >I lost btw- that would not have benefitted the list at all. > >the post I submitted and had screened, was poorly (not at all) >researched, and expressed a pov that was based in ignorance of >the subject I was commenting upon. It was taken the wrong way >by the moderator, but in light of the subject at hand, that >was certainly understandable, and in interest of the health >of the list, the decision to take the argument/debate off >list was most certainly correct. It also saved me the >embarrassment of arguing an idiotic point, something I am >want to do upon occasion :) > > >big thread snipped upon which I have nothing to add > >--chipper _______________________________________________ Biofuel mailing list Biofuel@sustainablelists.org http://sustainablelists.org/mailman/listinfo/biofuel_sustainablelists.org Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Search the combined Biofuel and Biofuels-biz list archives (50,000 messages): http://www.mail-archive.com/biofuel@sustainablelists.org/
