I do think it's unfair to censor submissions to the net. I think everyone
should have a voice if he is willing to take the time to participate. I think
I should be allowed to evaluate the worth of a contribution in terms of its
logical argument, relevance, pertinence, and, indeed, rationality. If I know
that you screen and censor contributions, I can never be sure that in any
discussion something I might find worthwhile is being left out because you did
not regard it as valuable.
If you have only been forced to make this admittedly difficult judgement
call ". . . a couple of times. . ." then I suggest that you not bother to put
yourself through the hassle. My observation is that the members of this net
are very capable of dealing with ambiguous, poorly aimed, and scurrilous post-
ings. Transgressors will be convinced to come along and move camp with us or
may pitch their lodges on another creek, but they must have a voice.
Dan Rowe Purdue
rowe@purccvm.bitnet
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Comments from NativeNet facilitator, Gary Trujillo:
I received several personal responses to my recent article concerning the
task of moderation which indicated a preference that some articles be
returned to their authors. I find myself in a real dilemma, since I want
to provide a high "signal-to-noise ratio" - avoiding articles that just
incite a lot of angry responses, since they are mainly personal attacks,
but on the other hand, I don't want to skate too close to the thin ice
of censorship. My guide, for the time being, will be that foul or abusive
language will not be tolerated, and that vague or unspecific criticisms
(yes, in my own admittedly biased opinion) will be returned to their
authors with my comments. If the author insists that he or she wants
the article posted, I will do so, but will add my own commentary which
indicates my own feelings about the piece.
A harder issue has to do with making decisions about when a given subject
has run its course. Usually, subjects just die of their own accord, for
lack of interest, so there has been only one instance where I recall
having terminated a discussion. (It was in the case of the "mascots"
topic last October, when a couple of articles came in that just seemed
to be attempts to "pick a fight," and I decided not to relay them, and
returned them to their authors with a note explaining what I had done
and why, though I didn't do so until some time later, having misplaced
them when dealing with a hardware problem.)
I see my task as more than just a mechanical manipulator of mail files,
and feel that a discussion can benefit from some critical judgement.
Whether my judgement is good, I leave to others to judge. This whole
subject is made extremely academic by the fact that, in the over two
year history of this mailing list, I can almost count on the fingers
of one hand the number of articles I have declined to relay for one
reason or another - so there is no massive amount of "censorship"
going on here. I vastly prefer to insert a note into an article to
offer a few thoughts on a particular piece to try to circumvent a
"flame war" - and I think it is worthy of note that the one such event
that took place early last year happened at a time when I was away
from my post, and had left the list to run itself without moderation.
Perhaps that fact was a coincidence.
As to Dan's suggestion that the small number of times I've declined to
relay an article is an indication that it's not worth all the soul-
searching I'm doing, or hassle involved in making such decisions, I'd
like to say that I feel that the issue for me is really one of knowing
that a lot of people like NativeNet precisely because there is not a
great deal of idle chit-chat going on, relative to other lists they've
encountered. This comment has been made consistently by a large number
of people, so I have to feel it to represent a primary value of members
of the list, and that efforts I might make to keep things in such a
state are appreciated. Perhaps there are other mechanisms to achieve
the same result, such as one suggested in an article by Kerry Miller
which came in recently, and which I plan to pass on (it involves the
idea of adding a keyword to the subject line which indicates the type
of article it is attached to).
In any case, I'm still anxious to learn what others feel. If you send
your opinions to me via private email, please let me know whether or
not you mind being quoted - whether your name is attached, or comments
are passed on anonymously. Thanks! --Gary (gst@gnosys.svle.ma.us)