Main List Problems and Solutions

[Susan Miller]

Thank you, Melody, for a thoughtful post which I will snip most of. 
She said one thing we needed was:

> 3) More moderators.

I hereby volunteer as a new moderator. Administrators, you can 
contact me offlist if you think I have what it takes.

Next -

After all our grumbling, I have noticed a decided up-tick in the 
quality of messages over the last day or so. I hope it continues.

Regarding the other solutions proposed here recently - I am opposed 
to breaking the list into more "daughter" lists. I think this would 
only compound the problem of sorting through the messages to find 
what one wants to read. Like Catlady, I actually DO read every single 
message every day. Lifeless ones, unite! :) I am also opposed to the 
idea of a newbies list. If that is unmoderated, then it will quickly 
devolve into a mess of fangirls, me-toos, and other junk and will 
discourage anyone from wishing to wait it out until graduation. If 
the newbies list is moderated, then what have we gained?

However, I would support the idea of new members being admited to the 
group in a read-only manner for a period of time before being 
advanced into moderated status and then to non-moderated status. I 
think this would give new members a period to become acclimated to 
the standards that we expect from them. This would be a non-
exclusionary introduction to our list. It would also reduce the 
strain on mods because it would allow new posters to get past the 
enthusiastic beginner posts and decide if this group is really 
something that they wish to become a member of.

I would also suggest a more ruthless treatment of rules violators. 
None of this three-strikes-and-you're-moderated business, IMO. I 
think One Violation should put one back in moderated status. OK. 
Maybe two. Moderated status doesn't mean they are gagged, just that 
they need to be more careful.

Perhaps there could be special-purpose elves, say ones who specialize 
in sending messages to posters who are posting off-topic messages on 
the main list - thus, violators would be sure to get one warning, but 
wouldn't get flooded with similar corrective messages from well-
meaning members. Now THAT would be intimidating.

I'll quit now and keep it short.

Constance Vigilance, elf-wannabe.