Text 39503, 86 rader
Skriven 2006-09-22 23:01:00 av Michiel van der Vlist (2:280/5555)
  Kommentar till text 39445 av Jeff Smith (1:14/0)
Ärende: terrorism
=================
Hello Jeff.

22 Sep 06 03:03, you wrote to me:

 JS>>> If the echo paticipents at that point choose to ignore the
 JS>>> moderator then other alternatives would need to be used.

 MV>> Such as?

 JS>>>  Yes... I know the effectiveness of feed cuts in todays Fidonet.

 MV>> Then no more needs to be said. You have just admitted that you
 MV>> have asked for the impossible.

 JS>      No. An effective moderator would only have to resort to a feed
 JS> cut as a last resort.

Of course. In the ideal case a good moderator will never have to use it. This
not being an ideal world howver...

 JS> When I was a moderator of a Z1_ echo some years back I don't recall
 JS> ever having to resort to a feed cut.

I have been the moderator of the Dutch national points echo from 1993. In the
haydays of Fidonet it was a very active echo with over a 100 messages a day and
moderating it was quit a job. In all those years I had to apply the weapon of
the feed cut against no more that three participants. And none of thoss cuts
were permanent.

That is history. I am still the moderator of points.028 but there is nothing to
moderate anymore. The number of particpants can be counted on one hand and they
all behave.

 JS> Effective communication eliminated most problems.

But not all of them and having the ultimate weapon of the feed cut makes all
the difference. 99.9% of all problems can be solved without ever even
mentioning the feed cut, but the user knows it is there and that is a strong
incentive to cooperate with the moderator.

Times have changed. Whereas it was sometomes difficult to get a feed cut in the
old days, it is now next to impossible. Add to that that FidoNet has almost
become a sysop only network and that the few remaining participants are not as
submissive any more, the reality is that the classical (Z1) way of moderating
does not work any more.

 JS>  Something that Björn as moderator has shown me no sign of.

As I said, you ask for the impossible. The harsh reality is that a moderator
has become a paper tiger that is powerless against an uncooperative
participant. And it did not start with Björn. Ask Joe Delahaye about the time
he was moderator of FN_SYSOP. That was how long ago? Five, six years? Even then
it was impossible to "effectively" moderate it.

 DD>>>> The "official moderator" of this echo certainly does that - I

 JS>>>      In the last 12 months or even a year. <g>

 MV>> This year I recieved a request from the moderator by netmail.

 JS>      Gosh... Were you bad? <g>

Not really. I was asked to cooperate in starving an obnoxious participant by
not responding to him.

 JS>>> How much "Moderating" has he done. Based upon behavior in the
 JS>>> echo and Björn's lack of presence as moderator I don't see any
 JS>>> sign of moderating having been done.

 MV>> Have you seen me responding to any message from Frank Scheidt
 MV>> recently?

 JS>      You mean it wasn't you using some common sense?

No. I had already decided to no longer respond to him and he was already in my
twitt filter when the request from the moderator reached me.

My point is that there are things going on that you do not see.

Cheers,


Michiel

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