John,
I concur completely on all of your points below.
The Real Dave (though OC will probably be duplicating this soon as well)
>Dave,
>Have you ever owned a server, email system, or BBS before?
>I have, and I was ultimately responsible for the content of
>everything that
>flowed into, through and out of it, whether I was able to monitor
>it all or
>not (this was totally impractical; indeed impossible). Didn't matter
>whether I killed it afteward; I had liability and culpability for anything
>that shouldn't be there, and for any length of time no matter how
>short . .
>. period . . . along with the perpetrator. What follows is based on my
>experience of about seven years of doing it.
>
>I've emailed this privately to Giles and Shawn before, and will now
>publicly applaud their basic hands-off policy. This is a very hard thing
>to do; emphasis on very hard. It's what makes it *our* list even though
>it's really *their* list operating out of their server. Anything
>more than
>intervening with clearly beyond any possible doubt, the most
>outrageous and
>egregious behavior imaginable, only runs the risk of being labeled
>a censor
>and can create a Holy War of its own. I found with systems I operated in
>the past that letting users police themselves, exerting peer
>pressure to do
>so, and developing their own consensus about what was generally acceptable
>was the best possible policy. In seven years with hundreds of users
>intervention was only required twice for behavior that was not legally
>allowed, and only one individual was ultimately booted off (from
>one of the
>incidents).
>
>Bottom line:
>A very, very few rules are better. Allow it to be the *users*
>list and you
>will have many users. Insist on it being the *owners* list, even though
>there may be a committee, or panel, or whatever you call it to
>make content
>and behavior decisions and you will also have politicking, sucking up to
>the "powers that be," and the *appearance* of a "class society" on the
>system, with insiders who are chummy with those in charge and
>outsiders who
>are not, along with ultimately only a few users. Perception is everything
>to the beholder; doesn't matter if it's true or not.
>
>I know where your heart is with your suggestion . . . to make this
>a better
>place. IMO it won't get the results you want, but only frustration.
>
>-- John
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