Liblicense-l: rules of the road

["Okerson, Ann" <ann.okerson@yale.edu>]

Dear Readers:  A couple of individuals have asked if liblicense-l 
has any "rules of the road" for moderation.  I've tried to set 
them down, and here they are.  Comments?  Thank you, Ann

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liblicense-l:  Rules of the Road

The hallmark of liblicense-l for many years has been its mix of 
current information of high value to librarians and publishers 
and friends, with serious and spirited discussion of issues that 
engage, perplex, and divide us.  The moderator participates but 
hopes that the moderating hand is mainly invisible.  But even if 
invisible, it is still active, seeking to keep the list valuable 
as a place for both information and discussion.

First rule:  If we can possibly post a submitted message, it will 
be posted, as soon as possible (usually this happens in the 
evenings), timing adjusted perhaps by professional travel and 
responsibilities, quirky networks, and the occasional balky 
laptop.  We're not fond of censors and have no ambition to take 
on that role.

Second rule:  Tedium is tedious, so if there's a choice, messages 
are preferred to be shorter rather than longer.  Once in a while 
if a message seems too long to sustain attention or promote 
conversation, we will ask the poster to shorten or perhaps point 
to a URL for fuller discussion.

Third rule:  Embarrassment is embarrassing and unpleasantness is 
unpleasant.  If threads linger to the point where the posters 
lose perspective and the signal to noise ratio falls near zero, 
we will stop a conversation discreetly, perhaps by a note, as 
kindly as possible, to one or two posters.

Fourth rule:  Insults are unnecessary, so we try to ask posters 
to restate something if only heat and not light will result. 
(We do sometimes occasionally miss a potential source of affront, 
and apologies for that.)  This does mean recognizing the 
personalities and styles of the regular posters, in particular, 
and not thwarting their evident pleasure in thwacking away at 
each other a bit with cushiony oversize boxing mitts.  A bit of 
that may liven things up.

Fifth rule:  Nobody makes money here.  Publisher announcements 
are posted when they seem to be of genuine interest to the 
readers here - e.g., announcing a very important piece of 
business, a new kind of partnership, a business model, or an 
ambitious project.  Single announcements of individual new titles 
or new hires rarely meet that test of interest.

Sixth rule:  We all agree we dislike monopolies, so when there is 
risk of a poster monopolizing the conversation, we write to that 
person to ask for some restraint.

Seventh rule:  The Web is an even more wondrous place when we 
check URLs first to be sure they're working.  Even then, the URL 
doesn't always work, though.

Eighth rule:  Vanilla ASCII "RULES."  Sometimes evenings are 
spent reformatting, word by word, messages that, unfortunately, 
don't arrive as plain text -- provided such messages are readable 
at the moderator end; often they are not and must be returned to 
the sender.  The Listproc software garbles non-ASCII text, html 
formatting, or attachments to some extent or totally, which means 
that it is a kindness to the moderator when posters send 
ASCII-only.  (No "smart quotes", no em-dashes or en-dashes, no 
umlauts or accents.)  Why use listproc?  Because many of our 
subscribers are in countries where internet access doesn't permit 
easy receipt of fancy or complicated messages.  Sometimes, 
character by character cleanup (not fun, believe me) doesn't work 
and gibberished messages go get to the list, so we go back to the 
archive to clean up the =20 and =93 signs that have crept in. 
That's not fun, either, but we do it.

Ninth rule:  Do all the previous message in the thread need to be 
included with your response?  Often, the answer is NO.  It's a 
different kindness to readers when posters (or the moderator) cut 
out some of the repetition that occurs when a thread goes on and 
mailers append sixteen earlier messages (with all their signature 
blocks!) to the new one that reads in full, "I agree with what 
Smedley wrote."

Tenth rule:  What happens on liblicense-l stays in the 
liblicense-l archive, which is linked off the LIBLICENSE web site 
(www.library.yale.edu/~llicense). We have only taken 3 messages 
out of the archive in 12 years, when pressed for legal reasons, 
and none for other requests.

Eleventh rule:  The "lib" in liblicense-l is pronounced with a 
long "I" as in "library."

Twelfth rule:  The above rules may be modified on occasion!

Thank you for your interest, help, and support.

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