Main List Problems - new problem identified

[Grey Wolf]

Judy wrote:
> I'm one of the elves, and I can tell you that we have been totally
> swamped since OoP came out.  This has made it very hard to do
> anything about the repetitive posts and such on the main list. Yes,
> we've considered enslaving -- er, recruiting -- more elves, but it
> takes a long time to learn to do pendings and such, so this would not
> be an immediate solution.

I respectfully disagree. You need help, but not with pendings. Pendings 
are tying up most of the elves's time, and is serving no purpose. The 
intention of pendings was to stop people from breaking the rules, but 
the rules are being broken anyway. The way I understand it, not all of 
the people blatantly breaking the rules in the main list can be 
unmoderated. Some must be moderated, and their low-quality posts are 
getting through. Someone mentioned pointing fingers privately and Cat 
is even considering taking it upon herself to police the list. The 
elves don't need more help in pendings - they need to revise the system 
and start punishing those that are breaking the rules sistematically. 
Good, fast filters would be to send back any posts breaking the rules 
with a note stating "read the FAQ" or "read the rules". No explanaition 
- let them to figure it out for themselves. Or a short "One liner" or 
"Me too" or "FAQ-covered" or "Spelling mistakes".

And once the pendings are streamlined, get a few sub-elves with little 
or no mod powers to help identify those posters that are breaking the 
rules outside moderated status. Some mod could start a list of 
offenders, and if a name gets called too much (like for 5 different 
posts) put them back to moderated immediately.

Those are solutions I've come up right now. There might be more. The 
important thing right now is that the list is mod-less. I've known that 
sort, and it will degenerate, not get better. There are some people 
that enjoy that sort of thing (beats me why), but it does happen, and a 
lot, in the Internet. If we want the list back to the high level 
discussion it was, policing will be needed, and soon.

> I personally like the idea of closing the main list and directing
> newbies to another list.  One of the benefits to closing the list
> would be that elves would be able to pay more attention to the posts
> by non-moderated members.  This would include both replying to good
> posts, and doing something about bad posts.  In order to free up elf
> time, though, the newbie list would have to be unmoderated, or at
> least not moderated by the existing elves. My idea is that after a
> month or two, members could leave the newbie list and go on moderated
> status on the main list.  I don't think it would be all that hard to
> explain to new members why we doing this -- the main list is FULL. 
> 10,000 members.  Too many.

Read my post on the matter - the main list wouldn't need moderated 
status anymore. The newbie list (or if you prefer, moderated list) 
would be free for all, with elves and volunteers looking thorugh it for 
good posters to allow to the main list. The main list would have oppen 
archives, and closed admission. Any rule breakers would be sent back to 
moderated list. It is, in essence, a step forward from a moderated 
system that is clearly broken. I think such system might be 
self-regulating, but I'm unsure. We'd have to see.
 
> However, clearly some other people don't like the idea of a different
> list for new members, and I have no idea what the overall level of
> support is for a newbie list.  

People complain such list would mean missing good posts. Not according 
to my idea - anyone can post, and you can volunteer to look through it 
to find good posts and good posters to take to the other list. It would 
be a list like the one we have right now: full, chaotic, with rule 
breaking. So it wouldn't be *worse*. It might be better, knowing that 
good behaviour is rewarded, though.

Which brings me to my *new* point. I've been doing some maths. Pre-OoP, 
we had 42% of the archives full. Two months later we have 52%. At 
current rate we will fill the list in ten months. Less if the posting 
rate continues to grow, and even less if something is not done about 
non-snipers (a one line post suddenly is 17k big). We're looking at the 
end of the list before next summer. And they don't make them this big 
anymore. Something has to be done, and has to be done *soon*.

> I think Debbie has a good point; the list may become more interesting
> in a few weeks, once school has started. There seems to be a lot of
> repetitive posts each summer.  Hey, new paper reporters call this
> "silly season!"  But, given the size of the list, just the end of
> summer may not be enough. So, please keep your suggestions coming! 
> We elves are paying close attention.
> 
> -- Judy Serenity

I disagree with this too - I doubt that the end of summer will bring 
that much relieve. That kind of one-liners don't take much to post. The 
people that are doing it will still find time to post "LOL" under a 
funny post even in breaks of work. No, solution is *not* sitting it 
out, I'm afraid. We're giving solutions, I hope, and I would like to 
ask to everyone to continue to think. There might be a best solution 
we're missing.

Hope that helps,

Grey Wolf