Re: FN-FORUM Plea for moderation on FN list

date posted 9th February 2003 18:57

Hi Folks,

I want to kick off by saying that I had the exact same feelings as those
expressed by the original poster when I first popped in here, and was
even naive enough (;o) to post suggesting two lists (and was similarly,
and rightly, chastised). I have since come to love this forum almost as
much as life itself, as much for the sense of community and the crazy,
zany things that people keep finding on the web as for it's technical
side. Heck, freelancing isn't even my main occupation anymore having
been suckered back into a paying web-dev job, but I'll keep me on this
list because it's just about unique in terms of what it offers.

Now, I don't know if it's the Scrumpy Jack that I've been downing all
afternoon, but I may have a suggestion to appease post 'camps' in the
debate - three lists! Before you think I've gone stir-crazy (which is a
possibility, but hear me out anyway), here's how it would work...

We'd have three lists:

- tech.freelancers.net
- chat.freelancers.net

...and, this is the killer one....

- all.freelancers.net

People subscribed to either tech.freelancers.net or chat.freelancers.net
would receive messages only posted to their chosen forum, but people
subscribed to all.freelancers.net would get everything - tech, chat,
warts 'n' all! Heck, since probably nobody would want the chat without
the tech (though not the other way round), there'd be little need for
chat.freelancers.net.

Obviously this requires some intervention on Dan and/or Andy's behalf,
and may not even be possible with their chosen discussion mailing list
software, but shouldn't be too hard to set up if it is supported.
Anything with OT in the subject line goes to chat.freelancers.net, and
everything else goes to tech.freelancers.net, so the only thing that we
need remember to do is to add OT to off-topic posts (which we should be
doing anyway ;o).

Admittedly, this is just like someone configuring their mail client to
trash all OT posts, but the key difference would be that newbies who
just want the tech stuff wouldn't have to. However, in the case of a
hotmail account (which isn't my cup of tea, but each to their own) or
similar it would prevent their account from being clogged up with posts
before the mailer has chance to deal with the OT ones.

As I started out saying, I'm an advocate of the 'keep it as it is' camp,
but maybe the above solution would give everyone what they want!

Regards,

Steve (who's laying off the Scrumpy just in case he gets any more bright
ideas ;o)

--