On 9/5/07, Marc Riddell
<michaeldavid86(a)comcast.net> wrote:
David, what is a nuisance, a pain, or rubbish to
you, may not be to me.
on 9/5/07 3:23 PM, Michael Noda at
michael.noda(a)gmail.com wrote:
While this is true, I think this thread has shown
pretty clearly that
you are a fairly far outlier in terms of your social expectations.
Not that this is a bad thing, but it would be unwise to expect the
list to change to meet those expectations, at least while the general
consensus remains as it is.
If your proposals are accepted, and the mailing list becomes
disagreeable to the majority of its active users (as they have
indicated it would), to the point that they leave and go elsewhere,
*what has been gained?* This sort of thinking, elevating pragmatics
over principle in all but a few cases, has been enshrined in the
project since the beginning, in the form of [[Wikipedia:Ignore all
rules]], and that spirit continues to inform the vast majority (one
hopes!) of the community.
Michael,
I receive many, many private emails from Members of this List Community
every day. The great majority of these persons are NOT banned or moderated
Members; but who fear ending up that way if they voice their opinions.
That is what drives me.
That comes as a surprise to me; as I said elsewhere, we mods are very
lenient when it comes to moderating people and approving messages from those
on moderation. (Also, hardly anybody is actually banned from the list, as
far as I know - I think I've only banned someone once, when the person
posted nothing helpful at all to the list.)
David Gerard said in the same thread I referred to that we're meant to be a
last resort; people who are banned from Wikipedia post here. As a result, we
have much lower standards than the English Wikipedia for moderation or
banning.
Dialogue is crucial; I personally would like to engage those who fear they
will be moderated, because I cannot think of a reason they would fear that
unless they actually intend to contribute nothing more than the same things
as those presently on moderation - most of whom are on it for good reason.
I would also add that speaking in vague abstract generalities is not very
helpful or conducive to a resolution of this problem; we need to know just
whats, whys, etc. of these fears. Feel free to disagree with me all you
like, but I find we're very tolerant of a lot of crap spewed onto the list -
even those on moderation often have their messages approved.
Johnleemk