Topband: Moderation

[Tree]

Definition: "the avoidance of excess or extremes, especially in one's
behavior or political opinions."

Here are some words someone shared with me regarding moderation:

1) Moderating is hard. If you do your job you are
going to piss someone off. But the people you piss off are worth pissing
off - because they will either modify their behavior or they will go
away (desirable in some cases).

2) In order to get high S/N the list can't be open loop. Yes, it slows
things down a little - but people will appreciate the filtering.
Solution? Have multiple moderators. It doesn't need to be a single-op
job. That will help the throughput. But last I checked there was no
real-time requirement for any discussions on these reflectors. If there
is, it should be a different focus list - like something to do with DX
alerting regarding DXpeditions or whatever.

3) Some of the bad players are well known, and it's gotten really tiring
listening to their stupid, snarky comments. I could name names, but we
all know who they are. And their crap should just be stopped at the
door. It's giving ham radio a bad name and it doesn't help attracting
new people to this part of the hobby.

I wish things were different, and that everyone could have empathy,
intelligence, knowledge and perspective. That's what we wish for -
unfortunately we're stuck with the human condition, so we have to deal
with it. Let the bad posters berate the moderators - most of the
audience will applaud, however.

End of quote.

I have reviewed some of the recent activity and decided that a small number
of people need to be moderated.  They simply don't know when to exercise
judgment on their posts.

The rest of us can decide if we want to keep this a positive place or not.
If it does require all posts to be moderated - then so be it - but it will
be different.  I would like to think we can all work together to keep
things from blowing up.

Also - those who let the idiots get under their skin probably could have
been part of the solution and let me know about the situation before
getting to the point of taking their marbles and going home.  We can work
together to make this better.  Don't assume I always have the bandwidth to
read every post.

KL7RA was good at alerting me when the pot was about to boil over...  but
he is no longer with us.  I can still see him walking past the double doors
at the ER and seeing them swing shut behind him.  I miss him very much.

Who will step up and let me know when things need attention?

73 Tree N6TR
on a business trip in XE1 still - but will try to work VP8STI tonight