Text 39737, 137 rader
Skriven 2006-09-24 16:37:00 av Michiel van der Vlist (2:280/5555.1)
  Kommentar till text 39589 av Jeff Smith (1:14/0)
Ärende: terrorism
=================
Hello Jeff.

23 Sep 06 01:23, you wrote to me:

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

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

 JS>      It wasn't an ideal world then either.

So we needed the weapon on occasion. If not to fire it, then to wave it. But
today, waving the weapon is no good, the user knows it is just a stage prop..

 JS> I don't claim any special abilities as a moderator.

By implication you do. You claim to be able to do the job that Björn can not.

 JS> But I was able to avoid feed cut requests through communication.

Only because you had the weapon as a backup and the user knew it.

 MV>> all those years I had to apply the weapon of the feed cut against
 MV>> no more that three participants. And none of thoss cuts were
 MV>> permanent.

 JS>      At one point I moderated about a half dozen echos. Mostly
 JS> software and OS related and they were pretty well behaved echos.

I moderated other echos as well but the R28 national points ech was the most
time consuming and the most difficult. Especially in the time of the CSO wars
where the region was effectively cut in half echomail wise and points.028 was
the only non topic bound unrestricted echo that crossed the "iron echomail
curtain"

 JS> While I never had to resort to a feed cut I did require a number of
 JS> people to "Go somewhere else for abit" from time to time.

Ah, so you *did* have to use the weapon. You *did* ban participants from the
echo. That you did not really have to call the assistence of a hub to have it
enforced make no real difference, you used the weapon....

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

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

 JS>      The task is not impossible. It just depends on ones level of
 JS> determination.

I say it is impossible. I have not seen any moderator of an interzonal non
topic bound echo to effectively deal with uncooperative partcipants. When Joe
Delahaye was moderator of FN_SYSOP he failed to control Roy. He tried to expell
him, but was unable to. When Roy became moderator of FN_SYSOP he tried to
expell Ward but failed.

When Roy had his nodenumber removed from the nodelist, Björn asked that he
refrained from posting in FN_SYSOP. For the FidoNews echo he asked that Roy
stpped posting from unlisted node numbers and that mail movers would stop
feeding the unlisted numbers Roy was using. Het got ZERO cooperation. Everyone
who fed Roy just kept on doing so.

Need I go on? read my lips: it is impossibkle to get a feed cut these days and
therefore it is impossible to moderate an unwilling participant. If they are
unwilling to moderate themsekves, there is nothing the moderator can do.

 JS> I am not minimizing what you are say Michiel. I agree that moderating
 JS> today's echos is differant than it was years back.
 JS> But I think that the task can still be done.

Then you must be superman. Every one else who tried in the last five years has
failed.

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

 JS>      Makes sense.

Sure does. Problem is that it has little or no effect if not everyone complies
with the request. And obviously there are some that do not.

 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?

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

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

 JS>      Oh, I am sure that there is. As I have said to Björn is netmail
 JS> I don't doubt that Björn has sent out moderating netmails. My point
 JS> to him and to you is that his actions and level of activity as
 JS> moderator are having little if any visible effect on the condition of
 JS> the Fidonews echo.

Granted.

 JS>  That IMHO is based on two possible reasons. First is that those
 JS> that are disrupting the echo have little or no respect for Björn as
 JS> the moderator.

So much is obvious. Remember that respect is a two way street. How can one
respect a partcipants that wishes me dead? How can one ever reach a situation
of mutualrespect under those conditions?

 JS> Respect is something that the moderator must earn.

This particular moderator was never given a chance from day one. Keep in  ind
that he is also elected moderator of FN_SYSOP. Those that did not vote for him
have never been able to accept that.

 JS> Secondly is that moderator *appears* to have given up. Something that
 JS> people in an echo are quick to pickup on. It is like waving a sign
 JS> that says "I DON'T @#$%ING CARE!! HAVE AT IT!!".

Jeff, I do not know how old you are, but I can tell you that when you reach a
certain age, there comes a point that you realise that the most precious
commodity in life is time. It is finite and irreplacable and so you do not want
to waste it any more on absolutely useless things like trying to talk some
sense into people like Roy, Frank or Dan.

If that is perceived as "giving up", so be it.

Cheers,

Michiel

--- GoldED/W32 3.0.1
 * Origin: Michiel's laptop, on the move somewhere.... (2:280/5555.1)