E-mail Full of Questions I wrote to MEG.

[Tom Wall]

Hey guys, here's the e-mail I wrote to MEG. Following is the response 
that Dave sent me recently. It *did* clear a bunch of stuff up. 
Thanks, guys.

-Tom

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Hi all,

It has recently come to my attention that some remarks
I made on the message board regarding the new OoP FAQ
were taken as 'rude' by some of your number, and that
subsequently it is more than likely that some feathers
were ruffled. So, first off, I'd like to begin by
offering both an apology and olive-branch to anyone
who may have been offended, and in particular to Pip,
whom I know has written the FAQ and has been working
hard to keep it up-to-date despite the avalanche of
new posts.

I hope that you all realize that nothing personal was
meant by my criticism. I also hope that you all
realize the distinction between complaining about some
inane matter of list procedure (and do I realize that
the `hbfile' advises members not to engage in this
kind of discussion, and will discuss that below) as
opposed to complaining about a Moderator *personally.*
Ordinarily I wouldn't have felt the need to draw this
distinction at all, but based on mail I've received, I
do feel it's necessary, as I also feel about the
apology.

In addition, it has been pointed out to me that I
don't know exactly what a Moderator does, and how
time-consuming the position can actually be.

So, in order to rectify this, and in order to
understand better the way that this list operates, I
have a variety of questions for all of you concerning
what exactly you do as Moderators, how you came to
have your present status in the HPfGU community, and
what your policies are regarding certain activities. I
would ordinarily have sent this just to Ali, my own
list-elf, but figured would be better to send it to
y'all instead, for three reasons: first, many heads
are better than one; second, Ali is probably as busy
as the rest of you right now, and so it seemed unfair
to burden her with a ton of questions; third, a search
through the information available to the HPfGU public
in the database and the files reveals practically none
of the information for which I'm asking. Based mostly
on number three, I'm hoping you all can do something
about this. In due time, of course. ;-)

First, what do you do as Moderators? Without knowing
anything specific in terms of `what Mods are
*required* to do,' yet having an idea how the list is
run in terms of what appears to go on here, I'd say
that you guys do the following stuff: you send out the
digests and special notice e-mails; you field
questions from HPfGU patrons like myself; you keep the
various webpages up-to-date; you monitor all messages
from members who are still on 'Moderated' status; you
monitor all other messages and delete them if they're
in violation of any Yahoo! term of service or legal
situation; you select the poll topics and run the
contests; you (meaning Pip, at the moment) are busy
with the new FAQ; you repost spoiler warnings and
legal policies to the group; you have the power to
shut down and reactivate the list; and you somehow
ensure coherence between these policies and those of
the sister Yahoo! groups, although exactly how they're
all related is a mystery to me. See below for more on
this last bit.

So, when someone says that you're all 'swamped' with
work right now, does that mean that you're all extra
busy reading through the Moderated messages because
there has been such an influx due to OoP, and/or that
there are other pressing things that are keeping you
very occupied at the moment? 

I'm asking because, as I mentioned earlier, it's not
exactly clear to me, or, I imagine, to the rest of the
HPfGU membership, exactly what it is that you guys do,
although by a cursory read through both the message
board and some private e-mail exchanges, it seems that
you all feel like you do quite a lot. For the record,
I am not questioning how much you all do for the list,
rather, I'm asking for clarification on what it is
that y'all *are* doing. Some enlightenment for the
average membership, after all, might increase the
respect that many of you feel you should be accorded
for your volunteered services.

Now, secondly, I'm also wondering how it is that you
all came to be Moderators, Elves, and Geists. Well,
Geists, I take it, used to serve the HPfGU community
and have agreed to remain on in a kind of
distinguished-veteran capacity. But other than the
Geists, I can't really figure out how it is that you
guys became Elves and Mods in the first place.

Who gets to be a Moderator? Who is eligible, and out
of those eligible, who gets selected and how? When
does the Mod team take on new members? I've heard
nothing about elections – do they exist at all? Are 
democratic principles used in selecting the
Moderators? Are you chosen by some kind of an unbiased
panel? Or are you chosen by some kind of `elders'
council, like the Spartan Gerousia? Is the Moderator
group a self-selecting minority, which is how it
appears? If you guys are members of a self-selecting
group, I'm inclined to ask whether or not y'all think
that this is fair, and whether or not you`re trying to
do anything about changing it – after all,
self-selecting oligarchies are notoriously resistant
to change, because normally they're reluctant to
relinquish their (often extensive and unchallenged)
authority.

In other words, do the members of the Mod team
exclusively select who will join the Mod team, thereby
ensuring that their own special-status is preserved?

Is the Mod team run like the Ministry of Magic, at the
decree of an official or group that isn't ostensibly
elected? Do you elect officials *within* the group,
i.e. is there anything comparable to a Moderator
`president' or `chair,' as in, who has access to the
owner-account `albusthewise?' Does seniority count?
Does activity on the list have anything to do with
becoming a Mod? For instance, there are several of you
from whom I am hard-pressed to remember having seen a
post on-list... others post regularly. So I am tempted
to ask how fair it is that some of the Moderators for
the list are less-involved than some regular members?
Bboy_mn and some others come to mind in this respect:
they have outstripped a great many of the current
Moderators in volume and quality of posts, yet seem to
have nothing to do with the Administrative team at
all. (Again, please do not take this personally. It is
simply an observation, and not intended as an insult.)

Surely the level of activity rates somehow in
determining eligibility for `Moderator' rank? Or does
it? 

What kind of influence do HPfGU Mods exert over the
sister Yahoo! groups? Is there some kind of core,
ubiquitous group of Mods throughout, or is authority
restricted to the main, book-related list? I've
noticed that the Mods for OT Chatter and Movie lists
aren't identical to the Mod-group for the main list,
and yet there is a noticeable overlap between them
all. How is eligibility for Moderator-status on the
other groups different from that status on the main
book group? Who determines eligibility for Mod-status
on the sister lists? To what extent is policy cohesive
between the groups? To what extent does the larger
Mod-group for the main list exact power over the
others, i.e. do representatives of the main list
report back on the activities of the sister groups?
Who appoints members to service-positions, i.e.
webmaster? Who is answerable to whom? What happens if
there's a conflict between two or more groups? With
whom does the buck stop?

Lot of questions, I know, and I am sorry if this adds
too much to what you have to do already. But, since I
pointed out that don't know exactly what these
activities are, I'll have to press on out of sheer
curiosity...

Lastly, I'm very interested in the policies that you
guys operate under. 

For instance (all examples here – no actual cases),
where is the distinction between Elkins-the-member
posting her personal opinion, and Elkins-the-Moderator
posting on behalf of the team? What about when
Elkins-the-member steps out of line, or gets overly
rude, or violates some HPfGU policy? Are Mods held to
a higher standard than regular members, or can Mods
basically do whatever they want? In my example, would
Elkins be sent a Howler? 

How does discipline work? Is there a difference
between disciplining one of your own and a regular
member? Do you all decide who is disciplined and how,
or is it a smaller group of you to whom that authority
is delegated? Are there HPfGU `Aurors,' so to speak,
who seek out infractions or deal with mishaps? Is
there an equivalent to the `Wizengamot' on the
Moderator group? If I was to be disciplined, would it
come from some special official e-mail address, or
could it come from any of you individually? Would it
be clear that I was being disciplined, in that the
mail would be very official-looking? Can any one Mod
decide to send a Howler or change my membership status
unilaterally? Is the decision to discipline taken
lightly, or not? Is it a group decision, or not, and
if so, what percentage of votes is required to proceed
on a course of action, i.e is there some quota? Are
Howlers announced publicly, or kept private? How many
Howlers have been sent through the group's history?
Are records kept? Who keeps them? 

What infraction could result in an ouster from the
HPfGU group? What kind of infraction could result in
an ouster from the Moderator group? Who makes those
kinds of decisions? Can they be appealed? If so, to
whom can one appeal?

On another note, what happens when I am e-mailed by
one of you personally? Example: Pippin writes me
personally to complain about something I wrote
on-list. She doesn't write what appears to be an
official e-mail, and it's not signed with her elf-name
(which is either Pippy or Peppy – I always confuse
Pippin and Pip in this respect... pardons, you two.)
At any rate, one way or the other, it's not clear to
me that she's writing on behalf of the Mods, or,
really, that the Mods have anything to do with
Pippin's e-mail at all, aside from the fact that she
is a Mod. So, when I write back to her, can I expect
that information to be relayed to the rest of you on
the Mod-message-board? Will it be posted and then
discussed and so forth? 

I ask because I know that some of my earlier
discussions on the list *have* been discussed by the
Moderators privately, and so I'm wondering exactly how
far you guys can go... where is the line drawn between
`public' and `private?' Is there a line at all? If I
write to Amanda to complain about something, can she
forward it on to the rest of you? Is there any kind of
confidentiality or privacy that exists between
Moderators and members? For instance, exactly who is
allowed to review the results of private polls? Is it
necessary for members to request privacy, and does it
matter even if they do? In other words, if `Peppy Elf'
writes to me, I'd expect that the contents of our
exchange would be subject to Moderator perusal if she
deemed it necessary. If `Pippin-the-member' writes to
me, my expectation is that the conversation would be
totally out of Moderator jurisdiction, and therefore
either kept privately between us, or else, (if
discussed at all) kept off the Moderator-list and
limited to private e-mail between individual Mods.
Surely the Mod-list isn't used as a way to complain
about other members, right?

Finally, as a `normal' member of HPfGU, what options
do I have to enact change if I desired? I ask this
because the no-longer-so-hb-file says: "Do not flame,
send obscenities or spam, engage in other
discourteous, disrespectful or illegal behavior or
**argue about list policy onlist** (send suggestions
to HPforGrownups-owner at yahoogroups.com instead)." 

In other words, there seems to be *no* public forum
for a discussion of list policy. In *other* other
words, you guys exclusively control list policy, and
when you discuss both it and suggested changes (unless
you feel inclined to ask for anyone's opinion via
poll) your discussions are private and you are
unaccountable to the rest of us, despite the fact that
HPfGU has more members than the entire town in which I
grew up. So, basically, at present you guys would seem
(to me) to be able to do whatever you want – there's
no accountability, and no one is answerable to anyone
else – succinctly put, there would appear to be no
oversight whatsoever. 

Example: I e-mail the Moderators, insisting that the
color of the main webpage be changed to puce because I
like puce more than the present hue. I get no
response. I e-mail again, and again, up to, say,
ninety times. Still, I get no response, or better, I
get a flat `no way,' without so much as an offer to
put out a poll. To whom can I go to either get an
answer, or to get some action? Is there an alternative
route to yourselves? Is it acceptable to write about
stuff like this on OT-Chatter? If a discussion occurs
on OT chatter, how much relevance would that have over
procedures for the other lists?

Anyways, those're all the questions I have for now.
Again, I hope that this isn't a tremendous burden on
all of you, since the OoP release seems to have
drastically raised your workload. And I also hope that
no one was offended by this e-mail... I mean it only
to ask questions and clarify, not to anger or insult
the group or any individuals within.

Oh, and one final thing, added at the suggestion of a
friend: I'm not asking these questions because I have
any designs to be a Moderator, or because I want to
cause trouble. Indeed, I have too much on my plate
already to entertain any such notions. However, after
the recent turn-of-events, I wanted to ask, as I am
very curious as to how these decisions are being made
and think that we could all benefit from an
explanation.

Thanks very much for your time, and keep up the good
work!

Tom Wall