List Rules .... was Moderator

["Sam Scripter" <MoscowSam@moscow.com>]

When the possibility of  "moderator" for Vision2020 was
suggested a few days ago, a definition of moderator was
not given.

As I understand it, a "moderator" decides which emails
send to the list are permitted to be posted for all to see!

That is censorship, outright.  No thank you.

I'd like to share with you some rules which we had to
invoke on another list.  For about four years we got
along fine without any rules.  Then one person joined
us and began flaming members on list and harrassing some,
especially women, off list.

I was list owner, so I unsubscribed the offender, repeatedly.
Then he would subscribe under a different email address!

This bout continued for about a year.  In the meanwhile,
I passed ownership and management of the list to another
individual in another state.  He, too, had to contend
with the issue.  Finally, some rules were established
and enforced:

1) No flaming on the list.
2) Members must use a real name and have it plus their
   geographic location appear in their email header, or
   as text in every post.
3) All emails must be in plain text -- no html posts, no
   rich text, just plain text.  (The list software was
   Majordomo; rich text often resulted in huge listings
   of alphabetic gibberish being sent to everyone.)
4) No postings of email with attachements (photos).
5) The above may lead to immediate unsubbing for the
   list owner.
5) Also, bounces to the list owner for full mailboxes 
   lead to immediate unsubing.  Members may resubscribe.

Some of the above may sound harsh, even petty.  But the
purpose of "Clydesdale Virtual Racing Team, for men and
women of size, who are gravity challenged," was to have
a good time.

We were getting up to 60-70 posts per day and it was
too much hassle to contend with disparaging behavior 
among and towards our list members, our friends.  It
also was a pain for the list owner to contend with all
the bounces back to him just because list members did
not keep their mail boxes from getting full.

It always amazed me that the "shield" of cyberspace
seemed to let some folks behave as real social clods.

So whoever is the person managing V2020, thank you
very much for putting up with us.

Sam Scripter, Moscow, north Idaho (a "state" of mind)
MoscowSam@moscow.com