Desperate measures

[Tabouli]

I've been following both the influx of "teenybopper" newbies and the accompanying reactions and discussions with interest.  I don't know enough about mailing lists to know what's viable, but couldn't we be a bit sneaky about this?  Any solution which involves separating out those longterm listmembers is going to be elitist in some way, but we don't have to trumpet it.  

Couldn't we have a more exclusive list where entry is by private email invitation only?  I suppose that would write off lurkers, but it's usually obvious within one or two posts whether someone is (a) using correct spelling and grammar, (b) has bothered to read at least the VFAQ file (I maintain that it's a lot to ask that newbies read or even scan the entire backlog of messages... c'mon, how many are there??), and possibly even (c) has something reasonably mature and interesting to contribute?  This private email could include a list of links to the VFAQ and FAQ files and require that the member tick boxes saying s/he has read them before being eligible for membership, and so on.

At least this would mean that people are being let into any new elite group by "merit" (vote of list elves, even, though this would take a lot of time and energy) rather than factors which are only loosely related to the "quality" of a person's posts, such as their age or length of membership.  Of course, a solution like this could potentially create not only a monster workload but all sorts of conflict about who gets invited and so on, but I think it would be fairer.  Then those who want a mature, intellectual list can subscribe to their well-versed-in-HP4GU-history inner circle list and just look on site for the wider, public list postings.

Sound feasible?

Tabouli.


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