Tag changed. I originally tried to post this using the ADMIN tag since I thought that is for discussion of list issues. That post just dissappeared without any notice, but I don't know if that is due to email issues at my end. Marechiare wrote: > Yeah, I know this is not quite the place for democracy, but, may I > humbly wonder what the OP have commited to make him getting thrown > under the inquisition of the pre-moderation? I see Bob gave you a brief answer, but it seems that was more to avoid talking about it than to actually provide real information. There was some ruckus at least a year or two ago with the old admins. A long time ago, just about everything was allowed on the PIClist. Then James (the admin then, who is no longer a admin) clamped down and overreacted the other way. At one point I'm not even sure you could tell someone to RTFM anymore when they asked a stupid question that was directly and clearly answered in the manual right where you'd expect to find it. Somewhere along the line James discovered the list server had a moderate feature. This could be turned on for selected users such that their posts would be sent to a bunch of moderators before going to the list. A moderator can reject a post or allow it to go to the list. Such censorship is totally the wrong way to enforce anything. Not only is censorship just plain wrong, but it allows the admins to feel they are doing something "middle road" and therefore they can apply it liberally. If there wasn't this unfortunate half-in half-out solution they'd have to be more careful and put more thought into applying the tools, and probably be a lot more tolerant too. Moderation is also damaging to conversation flow because message are delayed to the list. The delay is usually a few hours to a day or two. Once we finally got rid of James, things got more reasonable. I thought the new admins could have handle the SolarWind fiasco better, but mostly things were running smoothly. Then a bunch of months ago I was told out of the blue that I was put on moderation. There was no mention of any specific incident, anything I said, or any rule I was supposed to have broken. I decided to see how things would work out and give the new admins the benefit of the doubt for a while. This went on for some months. Occasionally some message got rejected for silly reasons. Then a few months ago a perfectly reasonable message that wasn't anywhere near the line got rejected by Russell, who is PC off the deep end. I decided I'd had enough and wasn't going to add value to the PIClist. Every time this sort of thing was discussed publicly, the consensus was overwhelmingly in favor of not being so heavy handed. In fact it was a vote for removing me from moderation that finally caused James to step down. I know this list isn't a democracy, but it is a community. The admins may have the final say, but the sense of the community should be considered in making decisions. I think the right way to deal with people getting out of hand is twofold. First and foremost, be tolerant. Think about what harm is really done by what someone at the other end of the internet said. If someone thinks you're being stupid and says so, does that really matter in the end? If he's right, you've learned a lesson. If he's wrong, you can rebut. As long as its about the a action or the content of a message and not about the person, there is no reason to get upset. Second when someone does get way out of line ("FU -------") be decisive, immediate, public, but also temporary. Decisive means you don't do something half in or wussy. You ban the offender. Public means you announce publicly that so-and-so is banned for this-particular offense. This is very important as it lets everyone see what line not to cross, but also that action is taken and there is therefore no need for anyone else to do anything more. Temporary is so that everyone can recover. It's very unlikely that the person that said FU is going to do it again right when he comes back. Bans should last from a day or two to a week or so for something serious. More if it happens repeatedly. If you look at the archives, you'll see that the discussions about the list that James hated so much were not actually in direct response to any offense, but in response to his action towards one. If such action is finite, then there will be little uproar because the problem will be resolved by itself in a few days. Anyway, there have been a number of times in the last few months where I've seen bad advice given, incomplete answers, or there was a particularly good answer I could have given. I refrained from adding value to this list under the current conditions. You can't have it both ways. You don't get to treat me unfairly and still have me help you. If you look back at the archives, you'll see I used to provide more help than most people here. And yes, if I thought something was stupid I'd say so, just like it works in Real Life. If you want Russell's idea of sugar coated reality, then I'm not the guy. Unfortunately it's not easy to notice missing content since you don't know what could have been mentioned. I find Russell's excessively PC and wordy style quite annoying. He probably finds my brief and brusk style annoying. The difference is I don't take offense by that and certainly wouldn't put him on moderation for it. ******************************************************************** Embed Inc, Littleton Massachusetts, http://www.embedinc.com/products (978) 742-9014. Gold level PIC consultants since 2000. -- http://www.piclist.com PIC/SX FAQ & list archive View/change your membership options at http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/piclist