Author: Don Beal
Date: 09:45:17 09/21/98
I'd like to start with a large Thank You to Steve Schwartz and the moderators for creating this forum and policing it. This forum is successful because of its charter - no personal attacks; on-topic posts only. The charter alone is not enough. Some posts (and if necessary, posters) have to be deleted, because human nature being what it is, and with the numbers of people who have web access, without action to back the charter, there will be outbreaks of hostility (and inappropriate topics) which will ruin the forum. There has been discussion about rules for the moderators. My belief at the time was that we were voting for the moderators to *use their judgement* to delete posts and/or posters. Now the moderators, and the CCC community, seem to have drifted into a position of trying to establish rules that govern their actions. Fine, but it's costing more time and energy than is justified. If this forum occupied a larger fraction of real life, or was the basis for significant parts of national economies, then yes definitely, have extensive political debate about policy and individual cases. But in my opinion, the current situation is better handled by appointing moderators and letting them get on with it silently. I think the moderators have been very restrained. They have removed very few posts, and banned very few posters. They have tolerated many posts that were objectionable, in order to avoid over-reacting. They are willing to give posters second chances. I say we should accept their decisions. All their decisions. And stop trying to write down rules for their actions. And they should act silently. Debating the decisions is re-introducing the problem that the existence of the moderators solves. However, moderators should be acccountable, so I do have one suggestion. If Steve and Tim can do it, I suggest all deleted posts go into an archive that can be inspected by any reader. Then anyone concerned that the moderators are censoring legitimate posts, or acting inappropriately, can judge for themselves. The moderators should seek votes of confidence occasionally. With this in place, debates on moderator decisions should be regarded as off-topic (although comment about a decision could still be accepted at the discretion of the moderators). Don Beal.
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