[ExI] FW: moderation in all things

Thu Apr 30 05:55:49 UTC 2009

Spike, that was beautiful, but I digress.

You have done a good job. Enjoy your time with your family, you deserve it.

Gina "Nanogirl" Miller
http://www.nanogirl.com

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "spike" <spike66 at att.net>
To: "'ExI chat list'" <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org>
Sent: Wednesday, April 29, 2009 9:29 PM
Subject: [ExI] FW: moderation in all things

>
> Greetings fellow extropians!
>
> On the subject of moderation, I am reluctantly and belatedly offering my
> resignation as moderator.  This resignation is at least a couple months
> overdue, for I really haven't been doing much, other than occasionally
> looking in the hold bucket and letting almost everything through.   The 
> term
> "offering" is understated; rather I must gently insist, for I intend to 
> make
> a few changes in my life forthwith, one of which is to go to daily digest
> Exi-chat for a while, perhaps as long as the duration of the summer, and
> unsub to all other internet lists besides this one.  Please I hope one or
> more of you will step up to the plate and take on this moderation task, so
> we can keep this list going, which I have enjoyed so much for the past 
> dozen
> years.
>
> With this email, I can cheerfully announce a personal and professional
> triumph that has allowed me to return early from a business trip to the 
> east
> coast, and now I will be able to stay home for the next eight to ten 
> weeks,
> perhaps longer.  I never expected this insane sprint to last all spring.
> For the last six weeks, my own boss has had to stand tall on the carpet
> every morning in front of the brass to explain in painful detail why my
> hardware hasn't been delivered and what he and I were doing to rectify 
> this
> sitch immediately.  Now we don't need to do that anymore, thank evolution.
>
> It is said that moderating Exi-chat is a thankless task, but I disagree. 
> It
> is a sometimes thankful task, for someone once posted me:
>
>>...Spike, I appreciate your laissez faire approach to moderating the
> list...
>
> Faire?  Well, thanks, I like to think I give everyone an even break, but
> Laissez?  No WAY Jose, not a chance!  I have been working my butt off this
> past year, the most insanely busy of my professional career, with thirty
> trips to the east coast in 15 months, back there every single week for the
> past five including this one.  New Jersey expects me to pay taxes in that
> state.  This I flatly refuse to do.  Sue me.  In the past half a year I 
> have
> had to pass up good times with friends, chess club, a wicked cool project
> working with Keith Henson, something I deeply regret having no time to do,
> and of course my family has sacrificed as well, suffering my absense early
> and often.  This routine for the past five weeks is Monday in the home
> office, catch the 10:40pm flight out of San Francisco to Newark NJ, or JFK
> if the Newark flight is full, arriving at crack of dawn Tuesday, head
> straight to the office, then Wednesday and Thursday in the east coast
> office, catch the 6:20 pm flight back, arriving at 9:45 pm (and hoping I
> don't catch the swine flu resulting in illness or serious death) so I can
> make the usual Friday meetings in the home office.  I will not miss that
> exhausting routine for one minute, nor will I pay New Jersey income taxes,
> nooo way.
>
> I currently have over two thousand unread messages in my in box, about 
> half
> of it Exi-chat stuff, some of it a couple months old, for I don't get
> Exi-chat or personal email while on the road, only business email.  I just
> fell behind, after reading everything on Exi-chat for a dozen years.  Most
> of that may hafta go in the bit bucket unread.  United Airlines is 
> offering
> me all these free trips, for I have flown on them farther than the 
> distance
> to the moon, which Armstrong and Aldrin did in a mere three days, but I
> don't want any of their lousy plane tickets!  I don't want any premier
> executive red carpet yakkity yaks or bla blas, I just want some stay-home
> tickets.  I like airplanes.  I just don't like airports and actually 
> flying
> in the damn things.  I don't like sitting next to hemans either, ewwww 
> yuk,
> germ factories are we.  Well, I am not, but everyone else is.  My own 
> germs
> never bothered me, but their's bothered me.  Actually germs are kinda 
> cool;
> wiggly little things that can go all over the place, or at least mine are.
> The other proles' germs are filthy disease carrying pathogens, stalking me
> constantly, wishing to fight with my own germs, just to be mean.  But I
> digress.
>
> Regarding my experience with Exi-chat, I will share some insider gossip 
> you
> may find interesting, and perhaps say something helpful to the next
> moderator.  About four years ago, we tried having three moderators, with 
> the
> notion that we would confer and try to come to a three way unanimous
> agreement on any action.  That didn't work.  I can't recall one single
> occasion where the three of us agreed, and so we tended to block ourselves
> and do nothing.  In retrospect this was my fault, for I usually wanted to
> allow everything, and it wasn't the right thing, for some of the stuff 
> that
> is posted is downright offensive.  Of course, I like being offended, but
> still.  The right way is to have a single moderator, and rotate the job
> around about every six months or so.  I kept getting in trouble because I
> would never spank anyone, even those who richly deserved it.  And I like
> spanking.  But I digress.
>
> Some here may recall when the list was attacked by those new transhumanist
> religion folks, led by I think his name mighta been Derk or Dark or
> something like that, and that weird chick that met him here and became his
> minion.  Usually one must have at least two minions to make an honest
> plural, but I think Durk had just the one minion.  What happens if two
> people are doting followers, and neither a leader?  Do they become each
> others' minion?  Are the then co-minions?  Or is it a minion and her 
> manion?
> If they take holy observances are they then co-minions in communion?  The
> world may never know.  In any case, they were bad news and had to go and 
> so
> we had that unpleasant episode where they and a whole bunch of other 
> people
> were tossed into the penalty box including myself, for overposting.  We
> spent several days spanking each other.  That part was cool, but some 
> never
> came back, which was sad.  I had to throw myself in there, but fortunately
> for me, the moderator has the power to lift himself by the hair of his own
> head, back out, which is what I did, along with all the others except Dork
> and his co-minion.  I never found out what happened to them.  If you know
> don't tell me, for I don't *even* need to know.
>
> When an elected offical resigns mid term due to some scurrilous scandal, 
> the
> usual claim is that he wishes to spend more tiiime with his faaaamily. 
> Why
> do they always make that silly comment?  My resignation is kinda like 
> that,
> except for four minor points.  First, I never expected to be doing this 
> job
> for this long, so it isn't really an untimely resignation, and second, I 
> am
> not an elected official, or if so, I stole the election.  Third, I haven't
> done any actual scandals (but I am always open to suggestion of course,
> scurrilous or otherwise.)  Last, the reprehensible elected official will
> make this claim of wanting to spend more tiiime with his faaaamily even if
> his closest living relative is an illegitimate adopted half third cousin
> once removed (by way of his second ex wife) who lives in prison on a
> different continent.  I on the other hand, have an actual family, 
> including
> six ageing parents, all of whom have at least one serious health problem 
> and
> need my help.  Shelly and I celebrated our golden anniversary in March, 
> and
> my son turns 3 in June.  Life is goooood.  {8-]  But there isn't time for
> everything, ja?
>
> That being said, all I really ask is a little respect.  And a condo at
> Aspen.  And a Maserati testarossa.  And godlike power over life and death,
> but that's all I really want.  Hell, keep the car, the resort and the
> respect, but that godlike power would be waaaay cool.  I would banish the
> hell outta death, forthwith.
>
> Now please someone step up and moderate this fine list.  I nominate John
> Grigg.  Isn't the Griggmeister about the nicest guy you ever met?  Johnny 
> I
> respectfully offer you the badge sir.  We will do whatever you say.  Well,
> not really, but we will cheer you on and will be cool if you serve only 
> the
> six month term we originally envisioned nearly four years ago.  I will 
> never
> utter a word of complaint, nor will anyone who has served as Exi-chat
> moderator, or plans to do so.
>
> Exi-chatters, thank you all for writing such interesting stuff during my
> term.  Please keep it up, turn it up, read the principles of extropy and 
> do
> them bigtime.
>
> spike
>
> http://www.maxmore.com/extprn3.htm
>
>
>
>
>
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