[sumo] Suggestion re: list moderation

[Emma Kolstad Antunes]

Seeing the recent flame wars lately, and still being an advocate for
an unmoderated, reply to the list approach, I have a suggestion: List
moms.

Several lists I participate in have list moms. Their job is to keep a
close eye on the list, and when a topic starts to generate more heat
than light, they step in and close the discussion. They also talk to
people off list if there are concerns, send people reminders to please
use the headers like [games] [sale] [spoiler] etc, and generally, keep
everyone happy playing in the sandbox and sharing their toys.

I like having List moms around. You don't have to have "approval" to
post to the list, so there's no risk of censorship. The list mom stays
neutral in an argument, so there's no bad feelings if they close a
topic that's getting out of hand.

For an example of how this works on a very large list I subscribe to,
see the DC Web Women Mailing List Guidelines at
http://www.dcwebwomen.org/mlist/listguide.html

For humor value, read "The Natural Life Cycle of Mailing Lists" at
http://www.rider.edu/~suler/psycyber/lifelist.html

And now back to sumo...


mineyama