[Foundation-l] Use of moderation

[Samuel Klein]

I agree with Tim's initial points.

On Wed, Sep 9, 2009 at 6:21 PM, Tim Starling <tstarling at wikimedia.org> wrote:
> David Gerard wrote:
>> wine-users - http://forum.winehq.org/
>
> If you allow posting via email, then you lose the ability to properly
> authenticate those posts. If you allow receiving of the full content

No need to optimize for this until it's a problem...

> via email, then you lose the ability to postmoderate. Maybe it would

You retain postmoderation for people who use the online forum.  If you
get bothered by spam and wish for more moderation you can move to
reading online.

> There's a chance we would see that aspect of it. The mailing lists
> have a different readership to the on-wiki discussion pages, and
> that's because of the technical barrier, which works in both
> directions. Some people prefer the interoperable nature of mail and
> don't bother reading the wikis, and some people like web pages and
> find the mailing lists strange, and the subscription process onerous.
>
> Because I know that this mailing list is mainly populated with the
> former kind of person, I know that my desire for a web-only interface
> is wishful thinking.
>
> A properly advertised bidirectional gateway might go some distance
> towards healing the split in the community that we currently have. But
> then we would run the risk of losing the people who contribute via
> mail, on small screens or non-threading clients, who already complain
> that foundation-l traffic is getting too high. A lower barrier to

I don't feel that this is a large group at all.  The vast majority of
people who lurk but don't contribute, and don't find the forum useful,
are willing to be creative in the tools they use to participate, but
want a social space where they feel comfortable / where they can find
comfortable discussions.  These are generally people who get along
fine on wikis that include [somewhere] quite dramatic edit wars...
it's not shyness about dealing with spam or trolls that keeps them
from finding the lists useful.


> I'm not opposed to bidirectional gateways, but I do think we should
> move carefully. If the software is not up to scratch, we could lose
> what productive public discussion we have, and increase our reliance
> on private mailing lists.

It would be nice to have something to compare before guessing what the
outcomes would be.  As Milos said, I guess most people would be happy
with 'some user-friendly, free speech-friendly and workable solution'
and might be glad to try something different.

SJ