My two cents on the moderation issue:
Back in the SPOON days, we used to manage fine unmoderated. A few
people would send someone spammy or trolly stuff to the list, but they
were generally ignored - at least, I had no trouble ignoring them.
The previous moderation on this list saw most of my emails not allowed
through. I feel that the list has declined in quality greatly since
the move to foucault.info - expressing this feeling was in fact one of
the things which got me moderated.
My feeling now is that we are having teething troubles going
unmoderated. The regular posters are relative newbies to the list, and
are used to a heavily moderated list. I expect that things will
quickly find an equilibrium.
Rupert's argument that we have censorship either way so we should
therefore deliberately censor posting is true in its premises but
makes no sense as an argument. Yes, people jumping on posters is a
form of censorship. But I have no problem with this, since frankly
people often need to be discouraged from posting (I didn't read any of
the emails Rupert is referring to though, so am not commenting on his
case). I don't think assigning this function to a well-meaning elite
and giving them power to censor by fiat is a good way to go, though;
at least not yet. Let's see if we can't play nicely first.
On 6/17/06, Mr. Rupert Russell <rhr30@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Back in the SPOON days, we used to manage fine unmoderated. A few
people would send someone spammy or trolly stuff to the list, but they
were generally ignored - at least, I had no trouble ignoring them.
The previous moderation on this list saw most of my emails not allowed
through. I feel that the list has declined in quality greatly since
the move to foucault.info - expressing this feeling was in fact one of
the things which got me moderated.
My feeling now is that we are having teething troubles going
unmoderated. The regular posters are relative newbies to the list, and
are used to a heavily moderated list. I expect that things will
quickly find an equilibrium.
Rupert's argument that we have censorship either way so we should
therefore deliberately censor posting is true in its premises but
makes no sense as an argument. Yes, people jumping on posters is a
form of censorship. But I have no problem with this, since frankly
people often need to be discouraged from posting (I didn't read any of
the emails Rupert is referring to though, so am not commenting on his
case). I don't think assigning this function to a well-meaning elite
and giving them power to censor by fiat is a good way to go, though;
at least not yet. Let's see if we can't play nicely first.
On 6/17/06, Mr. Rupert Russell <rhr30@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
I would personally like to see some form of moderation. I used to have posts
moderated and were always fair. I didn't like having my email taken apart
the other day like that which wasn't very pleasant and discourages me from
posting on this list in the future - which is a form of censurship. Rupert
-----Original Message-----
From: foucault-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:foucault-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of
admin-foucault@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Sent: 17 June 2006 08:19
To: Mailing-list
Subject: Re: [Foucault-L] request for moderation
The list has been unfiltered and unmoderated for the last 2 weeks - the
subject line already questions this change.
There are two positions:
1. The list is able to auto-regulate itself, list members should not be
policed or censured, freedom of speech, mirror of the diversity of real life
manners and discourses, better more messages than long silence, just hit the
"delete" button or unsubscribe, etc.
2. The list needs a minimal policy and moderation as defined there:
http://foucault.info/Foucault-L/
Since the transfer of the Foucault-L from Spoon collective in december 2004,
I've been semi-moderating and filtering out:
- off-subject posts (no link with Foucault)
- messages without elaborated information (such as "i'm in holiday"
"thank you" and everything in the "weather is beautiful" category)
- polemical messages (as fully described by Foucault in the article
"Polemics, Politics and Problematizations")
The majority of the members are listening in silence: they may figure this
space as a public forum with an audience of +1000 people, they hesitate to
grab the mike, knowing that this is also recorded and archived for good, in
search engines etc. I understand this position but I also think the ratio
contributor/listener is out of proportion: this is actually an issue in many
lists.
Also note that during this last year, at least 3 members argued with me in
private and unsubscribed as they disagreed with one of the 3 cited rules of
filtering.
I can no longer semi-moderate the list and I encourage the Foucault-L to
discuss and choose between option 1 auto-regulation and option 2
semi-moderation. For option 2, we'll need new volunteers to moderate.
Camille
Foucault-L admin.
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