[WikiEN-l] Who's moderated?

[William Pietri]

Marc Riddell wrote:
> I didn't realize Lists had owners. And, why is it private?
>
> I'm learning more and more about this culture every day :-(
>   

Hi, Marc. As somebody else, "owner" isn't meant in the territorial 
sense. It's more like "responsible party of last resort", and related 
terms are "moderator" and "list mom".

List moderation is a necessary evil for large lists. The more people you 
have, the more likely someone won't act with sufficient regard for 
others. If you let that go, then the jerks will drive out the useful 
contributors and the list will die. Indeed, I've been half wishing for a 
fully moderated Wikipedia mailing list, as this one sometimes teeters on 
the brink of usefulness to me.

Anyhow, moderation is nothing new; the earliest mention I can easily 
find is 1991 [1], and I'm pretty sure I saw moderated lists in the late 
80s.

William

[1] Computer Networking for Educational Researchers on BITNET; Jean W. 
Pierce; Gene V. Glass; Joseph L. Byers; Educational Researcher, Vol. 20, 
No. 1 (Jan., 1991), pp. 21-23


-- 
William Pietri <william at scissor.com>
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:William_Pietri