Re: List posting rules

[Jean Louis]

Mark, those are just generalizations, if you wish to minimize flames,
minimize it from your stand point without inflating accusations.

Real moderation is public, it is not censorship. Censorship does not
allow people to see information. That is what you do. In same cases of
profanity I would agree to that, but what you are doing is not
moderation.

Let us come to the definition of what is "Moderator":

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/moderator


Definition of moderator

1 : one who presides over an assembly, meeting, or discussion: such as
a : the chairman of a discussion group
b : the nonpartisan presiding officer of a town meeting
c : the presiding officer of a Presbyterian governing body

Thus moderator shall preside the discussion and not remove information
so that nobody can see it. You are doing it wrong because you never
learned what means to "moderate".

Imagine a meeting of participants around the round table, they are
speaking to each other. Now every person can hear each
other. Moderator is similar like a president of a meeting, such would
warn a person to stop with profanities, but even profanities could be
heard. And information could be heard.

What you are doing is far far from any moderation.

To learn what is moderation, please see how ams@gnu.org is doing it.

If we speak of character of being nonpartisan, each such moderator who
cannot be nonpartisan shall go away.

All what is written here is constructive proposal. It is teaching
moderators to be moderators, not censors.

What can you implement from that?

Can you lead discussion without making general statements and inflate
accusations?

Can you follow up discussion such as statements from Sandra with the
timely comment or remark that that she shall accurately provide facts
for her statements? By asking such a question you would "moderate" the
discussion, as you would lead the discussion towards constructive
solution. Then maybe Sandra would tell about media accusations and
somebody would tell about the facts, maybe both sides find the
facts. Then you could as moderator close the topic and say that there
were no shown facts and that shall topic shall be closed after some
time.

Then if anybody wish to raise again new question that relates to that
same topic, you would allow the question to come in, but as moderator
you would participate and point out the person to the closed topic,
which was already discussed. And unless there are some new evidences
that RMS would be guilty of crime, you would moderate (not delete
information) and tell person in public that it is too much.

All of these statements of mine are constructive proposals, teaching
you what means to be moderator.

See me comments below.

* Mark Wielaard <mark@klomp.org> [2019-11-03 14:58]:
> Hi DJ,
> 
> On Sat, 2019-11-02 at 19:54 -0400, DJ Delorie wrote:
> > If your solution to I broke the rules is post my messages anyway, so
> > I can get away with breaking the rules... no thanks.
> > 
> > If you have a problem with the moderation, that's between you and the
> > moderators.  The rest of us will wait until you can compose a posting
> > that does not break the rules, to hear what you have to say.
> > 
> > Moderators - please continue doing your job.
> 
> I appreciate the public vote of confidence, but how we communicate
> kindly and constructively with each other is something we should solve
> together. I am glad you trust that we made the right call, but I can
> certainly see how Marcel's opinion is somewhat different. That we have
> to moderate is a problem.

Problem is not that you have to moderate.

Moderator as by the definition is very good position and is first
person to lead discussion to come to the positive solution for both
sides.

What you are saying is that you are stopping information to pass
through while you are being biased already, that is not moderation,
that is censorship.

> Some people do need a bit of help seeing why their messages are
> unkind and why they should tone it down to make the conversation
> pleasant and constructive.

Such generalizations are inflating accusations. At least point out to
somebody and say who is unkind, and what is specifically unkind.

"tone" is subjective, make it objective.

Conversation need not be pleasant neither constructive by each
party. Obviously there are issues that are not pleasant to you, that
is why you signed the joint statement to defame Dr. Richard
Stallman. It was not pleasent to you to hear few jokes or some of his
opinions.

Now you are demanding that conversation is pleasant. Should it be
pleasant for you? That is how I see that.

What means "constructive"? Should it be only constructive for your
viewpoint?

You are subjective not objective.

> I certainly see Marcel's problem. The moderators don't have time to
> debug every individual message with each contributor. On the other
> hand letting through repeatedly unkind and unconstructive message to
> the list so all list members can help debug makes the mailinglist
> toxic pretty fast. I hope we can find a good middle ground by
> letting most messages through (which we really already do), even if
> they are unkind, and only stop accepting them after someone has been
> repeated warned that their messaging is not improving.

One day, maybe you become a real moderator and start leading
discussion to a conclusion.

People wish to speak and exchange with each other, even if they
apparently don't. But more communication is calming the heated
situation down. Not less.

Moderate in public, tell what is wrong. Don't generalize and place it
in public as this way you are wronging people. Be specific.

If somebody used profanity or attacked somebody personally, be
specific, quote the person, and tell why it was wrong. At least warn
the person.

Topics of discussion are various email subjects and in general the
main topic. So try to lead discussion so that people arrive to
conclusion about one subject or one part of the main topic.

And not that it goes on and on and on forever, and finally get
distorted by various views about your censorship and your speech how
some people are prolific in posting and some are unkind and so
on. This is not moderators-misc-complains@gnu.org finally.

Moderating means participating in discussion and inviting for more
discussion so that conclusions may be drawn.

It is not related to "deletion" of messages.

Jean