praising our moderators

[Mark Galassi]

    Mike> [...] One again, I ask that people please assume that
    Mike> moderators are acting in good faith.

I would like to say that Mike and others who have moderated have done a
very generous and good job.

Mike, I hope that you realize that most people feel that way (I'm a
physicist, so I'll suggest that you model with ratios of "silent
appreciateurs as a fraction of total" and so forth... there might even
be universal dynamical systems behavior hiding here.)  I think some
appreciate your work even when they complain in frustration.

Your analysis of what that strangely hostile person did also seems
correct, and it's quite possible that removing him from the list would
not solve the problem of his hangouts thing.  That would mean we would
have to wait for it to fade, as it already has at times.

I'm also guessing that people on the list are reading the moderators'
language vis-a-vis the current hot issues and making some bayesian guess
which side they might fall on.  Those that I think I've noticed are
moderators seem to always behave well in their own postings, even if I
might disagree with them on an issue or two (for example I lean toward
enforcible codes of conduct).

Folksinger Arlo Guthrie captured well the notion decades passing after a
crisis in his introduction to "When a Soldier Makes it Home".  It should
be possible to watch this without proprietary s/w on your own computer:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WDAl7lGGtSo