Just a note to some of the newer Vorts who may be wondering how moderation works in Vortex. Vortex is moderated, but only very lightly. The list relies heavily upon the self-discipline of members to keep a courteous tone and to moderate the amount of their own contributions. Ideally the tone of the list would be that of academics at a Starbucks during the personal time of a conference -- polite, letting the conversation go where it will, not necessarily hewing to the rigor of the conference but at the same time avoiding issues that are contentious. This is just an ideal, and it is not always observed. Sometimes weeks or months can go by where a user or two will have their way with the forum, posting a string of flamebait and personal attacks and trying to wrench discussions in the direction of their own choosing. This strategy is obviously not an effective one for winning people to one's point of view. Almost invariably such people get tired of posting to Vortex, and those that don't will eventually be cleaned up by Bill Beaty when he gets around to it (it can take a while). In the meantime such individuals must be suffered.
The best strategy to keep the signal to noise ratio high and to avoid getting caught up in arguments during such periods is filter out the emails of the problematic individuals. In Gmail, this can be done by setting up a filter. There are different options, and one is to have emails from certain email addresses automatically marked as "read," so that they do not grab your attention. If enough people do this, the people imposing on the list may get the hint and either moderate their participation or go away on their own. Eric
