Subject: RE: [mpowr] SUMMARY: Mailing List Management Discussion

From: "Robert Snively" <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 9 Jan 2004 09:09:44 -0800

> 
> However, this discussion has only involved eight of the
> approximately fifty people subscribed to this list.  Do
> others have opinions on this topic?
> 

I like to think of these discussions as extended meetings.
If we have an agreed-upon charter, scope, and agenda for
a mailing list, disruption can be classified according to
the relevance of the posting to that charter, scope, and
agenda.  If we do not have such an agreement, the suppression
of disruption may shift over to censorship without anyone even
noticing.

Clearly spam is disruptive and out of order in any mailing
list, but constructive ideas relevant to the charter, scope,
and agenda, even if wildly unpopular, should not be out
of order.

So of course the WG should be able to remove spammers from
its roles.  But a "well-run meeting" (i.e. a mailing list
with an agreed-upon charter, scope, and agenda) should
easily be able to distinguish out-of-order statements from
in-order statements and label them as such without having
to remove anyone from the roles.

That makes me mostly in disagreement with consensus item 1)

> (1) There is rough consensus among the people active on this
> list that WG chairs should be allowed to revoke the posting
> privileges of disruptive participants with AD approval and
> the possibility of appeal.

because the category of "disruptive" cannot be defined without
more context.  "We know it when we see it," is not an appropriate
definition of disruption.

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