Re: Moderation

[Dana S Emery <emery@onyx.si.edu>]

One of the harsh realities of living on the net is the need to defend one's
mailbox against unwanted commercial postings.  Moderated mail-lists are a
very effective way to focus discussion on a given subject area.
 
It is common for low-to-moderate volume lists which desire a high
information content to employ a moderator, when a willing person is willing
to serve the onerous burden of being redactor.  The position is quite
similar the role of the editor of a newspaper's letters to the editor
column, but without the restriction of limited column-inches.
 
I very much doubt that the present moderators have had occasion to reject
any material, in fact there have been recent pleas for more.  Further, I
would not assume silence to indicate a moderator's disagreement with a
submission, more likely it indicates failure of transport, and warrants
either a polite "did you get my.." or a simple resubmission.  These should
be rare events, barring hardware difficulties.
 
I for one see no reason to change the present moderated status of this
list.  I believe we need to keep whatever experts we can attract by
defending them from trivia.
 
I would ask those of you who would argue otherwise to consider the traffic
on Usenet mailgroups as an example of a total lack of moderation.  Few
groups ever achieve high info content, and most authorities hesitate to
waste time reading the news at semester's beginning.  Most of the serious
programmers I know reserve their news reading time for the summer, after the
sophmores have gone home.
 
 --
Dana S. Emery, Computer Specialist
Smithsonian Institution
Laboratory of Molecular Systematics
4210 Silver Hill Road
Suitland, MD  20746
 
(301) 238-3444     (voice)
(301) 238-3059     (fax)
emery@onyx.si.edu  (internet)