[Foundation-l] Moderation and this list

[Marc Riddell]

on 12/21/07 7:03 PM, Jimmy Wales at jwales at wikia.com wrote:

> Matthew Britton wrote:
>> Limiting the number of messages an individual is permitted to post will
>> only prevent active, honest individuals being insightful or helpful once
>> they have used up their quota. If someone really wants to make
>> themselves heard, they will simply subscribe multiple addresses to the
>> list and continue posting. Only those who play by the rules will lose out.
> 
> If it is a social norm, like normal Wikipedia social norms, it can be
> roughly flexible enough to prevent either of those problems.
> 
> I think a policy of 1 or 2 posts a day, adhered to as a social norm,
> will make it possible for active, honest, insightful, thoughtful good
> people to be *more* heard.  What we have right now is a small number of
> people (and only by chance I was not among them this month, I am surely
> an offender myself in the category of latching onto a thread and
> discussing it far beyond the point of positive returns!)... a small
> number of people making a disproportionate number of posts.
> 
> Fewer posts, less repetitive, and more quality, would be a good thing.
> 
> And, as a social norm, it can be fine to go over it now and then by
> accident or in good faith.
> 
> And violating it by subscribing multiple addresses?  Unlikely.  Pick out
> for yourself whoever you think is the worst poster to this list.
> Doesn't matter who it is, just whoever you think is the worst.  Is that
> person likely to sockpuppet to speak more on the list?  To subscribe
> multiple addresses and rules lawyer over what the idea of keeping a lid
> on the quantity really means?
> 
> I don't think so.  There are people who post to this list, some in large
> volume, who I think add little more than confusion, misleading
> pseudoinformation, and general hateful nonsense.  But I can't imagine
> any of them being so violative of social norms that they would resort to
> tactics like that just to be able to post a dozen times in a day.
> 
>> No offense intended, but this is really a very bad idea. I mean, what's
>> next, limiting the number of edits people can make to the wikis?
> 
> Wiki, as a medium, is very different from the mailing list, as a medium.
> So I don't know that the analogy holds.
> 
> --Jimbo
> 
To be clear, what is being considered "a post"? If you ask a question, and I
respond, then you respond, then I respond - does that constitute my 2 posts
for the day?

Marc