Re: (No subject)

>Amira (to Scott):
>>You did the right thing.  Nobody here wants to read that shit.  Perhaps if
>>Paul had laid down the law when intervention was needed on the other list
>>some
>>time ago, he wouldn't have had to resort to censoring posts and the
>>digest-only format.

Funny.  The way I remember it, Paul's _lack_ of intervention was roundly
praised on all sides at the time and pointed to as the way a list should be
run.  (The change to digest-only format was purely a function of list
volume, which wouldn't have been changed by his intervention unless he
actively limited posts or took other measures which I presume would have
been widely criticized.)

Yeah, Anthony was deliberately being an asshole, but it's certainly not the
first time anyone's done that on thewho.  He just took off-topic posts to a
logical extreme here to test a point, and got his answer, as did we all.
As far as I know, Paul never prevented someone from posting anything or
removed them from the list prior to the formal rules, which was done in the
first 10 days of this list's existence.  I'm somewhat stunned at the
general approval given the frequent recourse to the "free speech" aka "just
hit D" defense on the old list.

It looks to me like posting formal rules on the old list caused those who
were opposed to formal rules in principle to seek an alternative.  The
alternative may have been proposed and even conceived as a No Rules list
but now the claim is that this list isn't an anarchy but a democracy.  I'm
no proponent of anarchy myself, but I never claimed to be.  Nor am I a
democrat -- democracies can vote by majority to do things I disagree with,
such as boot someone off the list for reasons I may or may not find
insufficient.  I prefer there to be rules, however liberally conceived and
administered, from the outset -- which is still not the case on the new
list.

As far as I know, no one proposed modifying the rules Paul posted; instead
of working with him to modify rules that were seen as too restrictive there
was a stampede to the unfettered Valhalla of the new list, where we could
all be FREE, FREE to post what we want
(except-of-course-for-a-few-cases-to-be-determined- later).  Or
alternatively, a place where "the members run the list" -- but 500 people
don't sit at a keyboard or stay up late fixing the list, one (or at most
two or three) does; and that person holds the keys.  If he turns off his
own mind (which I do not advocate) and simply takes those actions requested
by the majority of readers, we're back to case B) above, democracy.

>>I think you should continue to handle these problems as
>>you see fit,

The "little at a time" instead of the "all at once" approach to rules.
It's clear to me that the hosts and most list members who have expressed an
opinion _do_ want rules, they just prefer them unwritten and administered
on a case-by-case basis rather than written and explicit.  As I've said, I
too prefer rules, but written ones -- but I'm apparently in the minority in
this democracy.

>>or else they might escalate to the point where people will be
>>unsubscribing or complaining incessantly about the waste of bandwidth and
>>you'll have a larger problem on your hands.

Mailing lists always express the political and social convictions of the
administrators.  In the absence of a readily available guidelines
reference, a list must of necessity become anarchy under a detached
administrator, or an "inner-circle" under an involved administrator -- even
if the inner-circle is 300 people, and they jump on 1 outsider.  It was
apparently "easy to see" that Anthony was not "one of us".  Hopefully no
one of the 300 will suffer the same fate, but there's nothing to guarantee
it except Scott's good intentions.

Speaking of off-topic posts, if anyone would like to discuss rights,
politics, ethics, etc., please e-mail me at amck@eden.com.

Having said this, I'd also like to say that I'm glad thewho exists and
thank all administrators, past and present, for their efforts in keeping it
running.

Long Live Rock,

Alan