Hi all,

I'm the list manager. Many new people don't know be because I don't post
too often. Always good advice IMO, but I'll throw in some thoughts on
list etiquette, FWIW.

The list is moderated by unpaid volunteers. That means some of the work
of running the list smoothly is off-loaded onto each poster. In English,
that means you have to volunteer to moderate yourself and make sure you
don't post anything uncivil, as the real moderators are busy dealing with
spam, porn, and other nonsense beyond the control of list subscribers.

Like yours, their lives are too hectic to have to deal with stuff _under
the control_ of fellow list members. This is supposed to be a lightly
commercial, volunteer, open community, not many rules, and all that good
stuff. This means some of the work to make it run smoothly is off-loaded
to everyone, meaning moderate yourself and don't take quick offense. That
is about the extent of your required work around here.

There are two good ways to moderate yourself, especially if you have a
history of getting into fights on e-mail (and you know who you are).

First, wait an hour before posting anything that may be construed as
uncivil -- try to anticipate if you will have poster's regret the next
day (many trolls don't, but these folks are usually easy to clean off
lists) -- and then just hit the delete key rather than the send key.

Second, when reading another e-mail which you construe as uncivil
(something that is easy to do even if there is no such intent by the
poster), try to find a civil construction or intent by the sender
anyway. If not, if you must, respond off-list, but better yet, let
it go. You'll feel that warm feeling of self-satisfaction of being
able to rise above the pettiness, and even if you don't, you won't gain
anything by posting anyway in these circumstances. Simply configure your
e-mail program to drop that sender into your spam folder for the future
(most modern e-mail software provides mechanisms to easily do this).

My philosophy is to be as open as possible with the moderation policy.
Lets try to keep it that way. One thing to note is that I'm not a big
believer in warning individuals, or placing them on moderation. I
prefer to just ban them without warning. The reason for this is simple --
Individual warnings and placement on moderation create unnecessary work
for the volunteer moderators. Banning does not -- a couple of clicks
and the problem goes away. Volunteers should not be forced to take time
out of _their_ busy schedule because _you_ can't be civil. Other
moderators may be less hard-line on this, that is their choice -- all
moderators have quite a bit of latitude as to how the list is run.

Finally, there is a reason people construe e-mail to be uncivil when
the same thing would not happen in person, or even over the phone.
I cut the dissertation as I don't feel like defending the scientific
ideas invoked (which in some cases are contested) or providing
references -- but always keep in mind that people construe e-mail to
be threatening when it is not intended to be. It is easy to do, so
think about it when reading -- do I have _evidence_ that the writer's
intent is threatening or to be uncivil, and as a writer -- how likely
is this to be construed as threatening or uncivil (but in my personal
opinion, most flame problems initiate from an initial misconstrual on
the part of a reader, not by intent of a writer (list trolls excepted,
but usually a different and obvious case).

Cheers
Randy