Birgitte SB wrote:
> This all sounds nice, however you are truly
judging
> this as reciprocal we have already lost.
While
those
> people representing WMF are inherently some
of
the
> best people on this list, the
"reciprocating"
group is
> open to anyone. There will always be
bitter,
> mean-spirited people around. If lack of
transparency
> is really due to these things, lets increase
the
> moderation to a level where there is enough
kindness
> to warrant transparency. Otherwise everyone
will
just
> continue to be held hostage by lowest common
> denominator.
Open communities have always had their openness and
goodwill tested by
emotional, clueless, suspicious, and irritable
community members, who
naturally put other people off (both intentionally
and not); as well as
by intentional trolls, manipulative people, and
sowers if ill will.
Wikipedia was built on a foundation of such people
(yes, even clueless
people -- and they don't remain cluelss for long
when you welcome them ;).
We are lucky to have problems of primarily the
former type on this list --
even our trolls tend to be people who support the
community's mission in
some fashion; not people who are here because they
stumbled across it and
want attention.
So I am really sad when I see longtime contributors
who no longer read the
-en list because it offends them so much; or who see
this list as a sewer.
We have to remedy this; hopefully without raising
the barrier to
participation.
People are hesitant to moderate because noone wants
to censor discussion
or prevent people from expressing valid
perspectives. This is good.
Let's increase /mediation/, not what we call list
'moderation' (blocking
list contributors). The best community solutions to
such situations that
I have seen had skilled mediators to step in where
there was serious
argument. I value the discussions we have on this
list very much, and
hope that we will find alternatives to giving up on
sharing ideas here.
Are there any mediators out there willing to take on
[part of] a list?
(perhaps even some of our current list mods?)
SJ
Moderation does not necessarily mean *blocking*.
Inappropriate posts can be returned to the sender
asking them to rephrase their concerns into a more
appropriate tone. Or if the problem posts are just
"pot-shots", the sender can be asked try again by
contributing something more substantial on the issue
without the personal remarks. If you don't trust the
current moderators so let through subsequent posts
from potentially moderated contributors, perhaps you
would be willing to volunteer becoming a moderator
yourself. I would certainly trust your judgment.
Birgitte SB
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