Re: Moderating and Administrative Thoughts

["Joyce Ogburn" <jlogburn@u.washington.edu>]

Ann, I for one would like to commend you on your message about moderating
the list. How well stated! You have provided a good model for others to
follow. Thank you for your excellent job at keeping the list interesting
and on target. Joyce

Joyce L. Ogburn
Associate Director of the Libraries
Resources and Collection Management Services
University of Washington
Box 352900
Seattle WA 98195-2900
phone: 206-685-2889; fax: 206-685-8727
jlogburn@u.washington.edu

----- Original Message -----
From: "Ann Okerson" <aokerson@pantheon.yale.edu>
To: <liblicense-l@lists.yale.edu>
Sent: Thursday, May 31, 2001 4:05 PM
Subject: Moderating and Administrative Thoughts

> Dear liblicense-l readers:
>
> *As readers of this list are aware, we have had some
> "interesting" (at times a little tense) threads on this
> list recently.  These have been very illuminating, and
> each of the correspondents has made highly useful points
> and performed important an public service while doing so
> (particular thanks to Donnie Curtis for her excellent
> analytical work about aggregator databases, for which
> the library community is immensely grateful).  We have
> all been informed and educated by the messages herein.
>
> My view is that the moderator, at least of this particular
> list, serves the several thousand readers by keeping
> postings somewhere within range of the list's topic and
> sending through messages that are cogent and readable, so
> as to not waste your time and to maximize the ratio of
> information to noise.
>
> And:  at least *this* moderator believes in as little
> censorship of messages as possible.
>
> Thus, some readers of this list may worry from time to time,
> as your moderator does, that messages may slip away from
> the calm tones and measured arguments of academic discourse.
> It certainly happens.  Occasionally, I have been known
> to chat offline with contributors, to encourage them
> to consider the greatest good of the greatest number and
> to help us all keep this list a source of interesting and
> frank discussion.  We've never had a "flame war", and I'm
> glad of that, because *that* kind of frank discussion
> tends to shut down both frankness and discussion.
>
> Still other readers have expressed a concern to me that
> sometimes the postings on the list are too self-promoting of a
> given correspondent's commercial business.  This is a harder
> area for your moderator, though again liblicense-l strives to
> include as much as possible, even press releases where they
> appear to serve a useful and informative role.
>
> But the bottom line is that we are all grownups and if we get
> a little exercised from time to time, we also calm down soon
> enough. And if we tend to promote our interests too much, we
> know that someone else will call this to readers' atention!
> To a large extent, we "moderate" ourselves.
>
> In short, this list is intended to be a high quality
> information and learning service -- and many of you believe
> that it meets that goal admirably. Please as you read and
> write, bear in mind our common desire for candor and
> enlightenment and think how you can help us all to achieve
> those important goals.
>
> *On a less lofty point, your listowners are now encountering a
> huge number message bounces and rejects due to overflowing
> mailboxes, disappearing subscribers, unknown services, and
> the like.  The volume of these has gotten so high that it
> is impossible to deal with them manually.  Accordingly, our
> postmaster has just set the liblicense-l list so that messages
> that are identified as "undeliverable" for many reasons, will
> be deleted without our seeing them and without our intervention.
> This may seem cruel, but it does save much time every day!
> And if it proves too cruel, we'll look for other options.
>
> The list software will, however, continue to direct to us
> any messages in which you are trying to subscribe or
> unsubscribe and your command is incorrect -- so you fail.
> In this case, human intervention will continue to help you!
> We want everyone who wants to be part of this list, to be
> here and to help those who no longer want to be here, to
> leave us.  And if you are totally frustrated in your
> attempts, please write to me directly.
>
> *Finally, if you wish to change your address, unsubscribe,
> re-subscribe, or tell a friend how to subscribe for the first
> time, there is a very easy way to do so and to avoid the
> complications of listproc software commands, which are
> ugly indeed.  Simply go to the liblicense web site at:
> <http://www.library.yale.edu/~llicense/index.shtml> and
> follow the subscribe (or unsubscribe) instructions in the
> section in the dark blue bar titled
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>
> Thank you as always for being with us and for learning with
> us and for teaching us.
>
> Ann Okerson, for liblicense-l
> ann.okerson@yale.edu