5 Posts per day limit

[Judy]

Jen Reese" <stevejjen at ...> wrote:
> .... Just a 
> little bit of history. After OOTP the list went through this period 
> where every day for weeks on end, I kid you not, there were the 
> same debates over and over ad nauseum about Snape (most often his 
> teaching or Occlumency) and the abuse issue with the Dursleys. 
> Typically a handful of people would argue the same points daily, 
> trying to persuade each other of the their 'truth'. Posts from 
> individuals would number way over 5 by the time each day was done 
> and you can probably guess the outcome--no one persuaded anyone 
> else of ANYTHING. Other issues got crowded out or people simply 
> stopped posting b/c the list became so negative and, in my opinion, 
> boring.
> 
> In my experience unlimited posting promotes unlimited arguing and 
> the utopian ideal of 6-7 'worthwhile posts' won't be met....

I don't usually weigh in here, but I want to agree with what Jen 
said.  Before the posting limits, often just a few members would 
really "hog" the board by arguing back and forth.  Also, there was a 
problem where some members wouldn't read a whole thread before 
responding.  Instead, they'd just write a response to every post on 
the thread, so if there were already ten posts on the thread, they'd 
write ten responses.  In many cases, the points they were making had 
already been made by someone else, and they just hadn't read that far 
yet.

The problem with judging members' posts on a case-by-case basis is 
that it is almost guaranteed to lead to hurt feelings and charges of 
favoritism.  If we have a system that limits only those posters who 
are making pointless posts, then the elves are going to have to tell 
those people, "Please don't post so much because you aren't saying 
anything worth reading."  They can try to sugar-coat it, but that's 
what it will mean. Telling someone, "We have a rule of no more than 
five posts a day," is a lot easier on people's feelings. 

I used to be a list elf, and we spent a *lot* of time discussing 
whether we should have posting limits before we ever implemented the 
rule.  If there's a better system, we certainly weren't able to find 
it.

Saitaina, I think maybe the posting limit rule was implemented after 
you left.  That may be why you don't remember it.

-- Judy