[extropy-chat] META: ExI List Quality & Future

[Adrian Tymes]

--- "kevinfreels.com" <kevin at kevinfreels.com> wrote:
> If this is where you were going I am truly sorry. I see your
> point
> about
> people being either unwilling or unable to enforce those rules.

Now we are in agreement.  I thought it might have been a
misunderstanding along those lines.  :)

> I
> guess I am
> missing something rather obvious; Namely, how an organization
> with an
> eye
> for the future still has to have a manually controlled mailing
> list
> when all
> the necessary tools for this are already available at almost
> no cost.

Ah...I would contend that this is not so obvious - even for us.
Someone has to build the future, in order for the future we want
to arrive.

> I'm
> all for a true message board with a "rate this response"
> button and a
> star
> rating by each member that could be sorted by member rating as
> well
> as by
> topics. This should be easy enough to do with the resources
> that are
> available for message forums right now.

Well...we do, technically, have a Web board that mirrors the
mailing list, right?  But it doesn't seem like many people use
that interface.  (I saw a "Karma" feature on the board, but it
looked like it only applied to the Web board - useless to anyone
whose interface is the email list itself, as it probably is for
most members of this list.)

How about this?  Anyone who wants to help moderate the list, can
register for that Web board with the same email address as used
to subscribe to this list.  Then, whenever they see something
that in their opinion requires moderation, they log on to the
board and give karma, Slashdot-style (although, not tracked
long-term), with negative and positive karma cancelling out.
Any poster who reaches a certain threshold of positive karma
over a certain time period (say, a day) will be automatically
sent an email saying so.  Any poster who reaches a certain
threshold of negative karma over a certain time period will be
temporarily banned from posting to the email list - and, again,
get an email explaining this (including which emails were
objected to and by how much, in case people are objecting to a
certain thread and anyone participating in it).  Any poster who
accumulates a certain number of karma-temp-bans in a certain
space of time will be temp-banned for a longer period - say, 3
bans in a week means a month-long temp-ban - plus the list
admins will be notified.  Using the example timeframes, the
admins then have a month to decide if the temp-ban should be
made permanent.

Or does something like this already exist?  I found the Web
board by googling on my name, and running into caches of my
posts to this list.  That's encounter by random chance - not
reliable.

Which leads to a simpler, but far more important, suggestion:
regular reminders of this feature.  I forget off the top of my
head whether this list already sends monthly or quarterly
reminder emails; if so, alter them, if not, create them.  Either
way, explain the moderation system in brief - *and remind users
that they can moderate the list*.  That way, if people
experience a fresh surge of off-topicness (like what recently
happened), they will be more likely to remember that when the
next reminder comes...and then they will be more likely to start
using the moderation features.  (Mod features intended for the
average list member to use, don't matter much if said average
list member doesn't know they exist.)

Hopefully, even lurkers will be able to help with the moderation
this way: even if they have nothing to say, they can
(anonymously) say whether a certain kind of discussion should be
on this list.