At 01:02 AM 1/3/2013, Eric Walker wrote:
I am starting this as a new thread because many
people are starting to skip entire threads. Â See my questions below.
I wrote "If that's the best we can do for now,
how to address Abd's pressing concern about
having his background and religion subject to
constant assault on this list?" Â But really
this is a concern that pertains to all of us. Â
We need a list that is hospitable to all people
who can make a competent contribution. Â (I do
not mean *everybody*. Â I do not mind in the
slightest if list mods take action to make the
list quite inhospitable to those who for
whatever reason are too immature to contribute much of value.)
The problem is that there are no "list mods."
Bill is absent. He last posted on 11/12/12. On
11/4, he announced the removal of a list member:
http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/msg72688.html
and he reiterated his policy. It's quite clear
what he'd do. How far he'd go may be less clear,
but the basic action is not in doubt.
Think about what you would do if you were in
Abd's situation. Â Perhaps you would just abide
the assault quietly. Â Perhaps you would leave
the list. Â But that would not make the
environment any more hospitable for others in
shoes similar to yours. Â You may not respond in
the way that Abd has. Â But we should appreciate
that he's being put in a very awkward position
and that he has broader interests in mind.
Thanks, Eric. There are solutions here, and I've
acted to implement one, that can work if enough
people want it to work, and that doesn't depend
on voluntary compliance from trolls or other
disruptive members. This list is currently,
effectively, unmoderated. I do not know if
subscription is working, I haven't checked, but
if Bill moderates subscription, that may be
missing also. Unmoderated lists go south, it is
practically inevitable. Moderation can be very
light, as has been Bill's practice, I urge
reading his policy in the post cited above.
I know I can be controversial, but I also have a
long reputation to maintain. I've promised that
the new list will be operated as a continuation
of this list, only with some new features. I'm
the owner of the new list, but I promise to be
open and transparent about that, and to be
responsive to the community consensus. I will
appoint new moderators, and at least one new list
owner, from among those willing to serve and
known and reasonably trustworthy. Bill, if he
shows up, and if he wants to be an owner of the
new list, I guarantee in advance that he'll be made one.
We need to be careful about the "owner" status.
An owner can delete messages and the entire list,
and an owner can remove moderators *and owners.*
So the basic requirement for being an owner as a
trustee for a community is trustwothiness.
I intend to implement forwarding from this list
to the new list, assuming that I can get a
subscription through. If not, I'll set up
indirect forwarding, it's more of a nuisance but it's still possible.
What that will mean is that one will be able to
read this list, but moderated, as determined by
the moderation panel. Only new subscribers will
be moderated on the new list, unmoderated when
they show relevant postings, and placed back on
moderation only after at least one violated
warning, and this will be transparent and
appealable, through a non-disruptive appeal
process that will itself be transparent.
Moderated members who flood moderators with
irrelevant posts may be removed as members, but there will be warning.
Unfortunately, if one is reading the new list,
replies will automatically go to the new list,
not here. However, one can obviously fix that
manually, if one prefers to reply to the existing Vortex list.
The new list direct subscription address:
[email protected]. On-line subscription is at
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/newvortex/join
Eric
On Wed, Jan 2, 2013 at 8:22 PM, Eric WalkerÂ
<<mailto:[email protected]>[email protected]>Â wrote:
On Wed, Jan 2, 2013 at 8:08 PM, Abd ul-Rahman
Lomax <<mailto:[email protected]>[email protected]> wrote:
Oh, I'm quivering, shaking with the possibility
that *Jed Rothwell* might filter me out.
I am not going to subscribe to VortexB-l. This
is supposedy a moderated list. If it stays unmoderated, I won't be here long.
Â
Hate to say it, but the troll is starting to
win. Â People are starting to lose patience with
one another.  I think Steve Johnson has been on this list since early days.
Any word on Bill? Â Is he ok?
How long do we suffer the present situation
until we reconstitute under something like
Google Groups, with Terry or another longtimer
as mod? Or should everyone who can't stand the
situation add he who shall not be named to a
killfile? Â If that's the best we can do for
now, how to address Abd's pressing concern about
having his background and religion subject to constant assault on this list?
Eric
Â
