Seriously, guys.
We're all pretty easy-going; for years we shied away from moderating
people on Foundation-l, only falling back to that as a last resort.
Since this is the list you take Foundation matters to, in the past
people have exercised a certain level of self-control, lest they not
be taken seriously. I won't say that there weren't occasional flames,
but it was more or less self-moderating.
Now, however, it's gotten out of control. Board members and WMF
executives alike have told me that they don't give much heed to
Foundation-l; Mike Godwin unsubscribed for a time, and in a post to
this list Jimmy described it as a "sewer." Something has to change.
If people want their input to make a difference, they'll have to
maintain a forum that people actually pay attention to.
Michael and I pledged a couple of months ago to maintain closer
supervision of Foundation-l, and in that time quite a few people have
seen themselves moderated. Lately, we've taken the extraordinary step
of killing entire threads; I just killed once twice over, not without
a few angry e-mails.
Please, please do your best to be civil and on-topic. Everyone shares
the goal of an open forum for reasonable discussion of Foundation
matters, but this isn't helped by posts attacking Egyptians as hating
gays and joking about U.S. genocide of American Indians.
tl;dr be nice or b&.
Austin